Despite the rapid increase in volumes which began in September and put an end to almost a year of adversity, the upward surge was relatively short lived, stabilizing in November, in the case of exchange-traded FX contracts on Tokyo Financial Exchange, began to tail off very slightly in December.
Whilst a stabilization during November and December may have been the case for OTC giants such as Hotspot FX, exchange-traded FX is following a similar line with Click365 today having announced a 3.5% downturn in volumes during December 2014.
Although there was a mild upturn in trading volume during November, in the form of a 2.4% increase over October’s trading volumes in margin FX contracts on the Tokyo Financial Exchange, representing a direction contrary to that of many firms which experienced a downturn in November, December’s figures paint a relatively stable picture as a very slight slowdown in trading activity during December is often seasonal, and considering the continued buoyancy during November, Click 365 volumes can be considered steady in December.
In terms of monthly percentage increases, a 2.4% increase in November may not at first appear much to write home about, however when considering that October represented a month in which Click365 experienced an astronomical 24.2% increase over September’s volumes.
To improve on this in November, therefore, is indeed no mean feat, thus further denoting a strong position in December.
The total trading volume of exchange FX Margin contracts on Tokyo Financial Exchange in December was 3,999,545, with average daily trading volume standing at 173,894 contracts.
This also represents a 42.9% increase compared with November 2013, the third month which heralded the beginning of a prolonged period of industry wide low volumes.
By contrast to the buoyant trading activity in Click365 margin FX contracts, Euroyen futures contracts took a substantial dive by a further 12.3% in December, following a vast 55% downturn in November compared with October’s trading activity.
On this basis, Three month Euroyen futures trading volume reduced down to a daily average of 5,478 contracts, compared to 7,293 contracts in November this year, thus further negating the 30.2% increase in Euroyen futures contract trading activity which occurred in October over September’s results.
An interesting observation is that it is clear to see that Japanese traders have not entirely given the EUR/JPY a wide berth during December, instead favoring exchange-traded spot transactions over futures contracts, with EUR/JPY activity on Click365 having increased by a substantial 15.2% in December compared with November, which itself brought home a 20.9% increase over October. The daily average number of EUR/JPY contracts traded in December was 101,464.
As the year 2014 drew to a close, Tokyo Exchange also reported that the trading volume of Three-month Euroyen futures for 2014 was 2,708,318, which is a 46.3% decrease YoY, highlighting the recent downturn in volumes relating to that particular contract, whilst its average daily trading volume was 11,100 for the entire year.
the total trading volume of Exchange FX Margin contracts (Click365) during 2014 was 32,746,720, a substantial 40.7% decrease YoY, with average daily trading volume standing at 125,948 for the entire year.
For the full announcement from Tokyo Financial Exchange, click here.