Leading Forex ECN ICAP-EBS continued to show improvement in its FX trading volumes, posting a 5% rise in June average daily volumes to $137.6 billion. However, EBS still has a lot of catching up to do before it returns to the above-$150-billion-daily volumes it saw consistently last year between May and October, as per the chart below:
This is our second indication that June was a good month globally for FX trading volumes, after a similar rise was seen in June by the CME Group. In May, our Retail FX Volume Index, sponsored by Leverate, was up 10.5% to $190 billion (average daily volumes), the best month so far in 2012.
ICAP-EBS has taken some bold steps lately to protect its leading position in the Forex ECN market, such as the replacement of its CEO, and the replacement of “decimal” pricing with half-pip pricing, in a bid to ward off high frequency traders.
For more on the global FX market see the LeapRate-Dow Jones Forex Industry Report.