After an explosive start to the year with record Fx trading volumes across brokerages and exchanges, retail Fx brokers are now witnessing a softening in the trend with a decline in trading volumes in all areas. On Wednesday, Saxo Bank and CME Group have disclosed their monthly operational metrics for March 2018 in which it reported a strong decline in the Fx volume.
Saxo Bank
In February 2018, Saxo Bank reported a total trading volume of $612.1 billion, best for any primary retail fx brokers outside of Japan. But in March it witnessed a huge drop in trading volumes with over 67 percent decline to $472 billion compared to February 2018. The Fx volumes witnessed 27 percent drop to $317 billion from $433.2 billion in prior month. Still, on the yearly basis, the volumes are stronger as for the March 2017 it reported $245 billion in monthly FX volume and $338 billion total trading volume.
The brokerage house has reported decline across its entire product category on a monthly basis during March 2018 including Equities ($109 billion, down by 12 percent), Commodities ($29 billion, down by 2 percent) and Fixed Income ($17 billion, down by 32 percent).
CME Group
The CME Group (NASDAQ: CME) has released its March 2018 Fx Options monthly review showing mixed performance across all six product lines. During the month, the CME’s average daily volume rose by six percent on a year-over-year basis coming in at 4,202,055 contracts per day compared to 3,962,365 contracts year ago.
Total Fx options during the month were averaged 72,781 contracts per day, a slight 5 percent gain on a year-on-year basis from 69,597 contracts in March 2017, but across a monthly interval, the latest figures are 19.6 percent lower from 90,583 contracts per day in February 2018. The EUR/USD option increased 10 percent on a yearly basis while JPY/USD and CHF/USD options declined 19 percent and 57 percent respectively compared to March 2017 figures.
The ADV for equity index options volumes during March 2018 coming in at 883,725 contracts, higher by 15 percent on a yearly basis but is down by almost 40 percent compared to prior month. In metal options, the holding companies for CBOT, NYMEX, and COMEX averaged 53,661 contracts per day in March 2018, a growth of 14 percent when compared to last year’s figures but is 5 percent lower on a month-over-month basis from 56,434 contracts in February 2018.
