Refinitiv stands as the former Risk and Financial business of Thomson Reuters. Today, the company reported that it had seen an increase in its average daily volumes (ADV) regarding currency trading. Last month, the company recorded an impressive ADV of $426 billion within its main FX trading services for September. As such, this stands as the highest ADV figure recorded within the past six months, only being beat by the currency volume peak occurring back in March of 2020, valued at $540 billion.
Recovering From May’s Fallout
As for the forex trading volumes for both the FXall and Refinitiv Matching platforms, the figures went down 3%, year over year, compared to September of 2019’s $439 billion, but is up, month over month, by 3.4% when compared to August 2020’s volume of $412 billion. Overall, however, it still stands as 21% less than the record metrics that were recorded during the COVID-induced volatility of March.
This marks as the third rise in turnover, month over month, in a row ever since trade volumes bottomed out back in May at $366 billion. This occurred due to the March-induced record highs in volatility, caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, causing a subsequent fallout in May.
Increase In Volumes Across The Board
Refinitiv, partly owned by Thomson Reuters still, had its spot FX volumes hold up far better than the other volumes, including options and swaps. $84 billion was reported by Refinitiv’s institutional FX spot volumes, which stands as a 12% rise when viewed in a monthly interval in comparison to August 2020’s $75 billion. When viewed year-over-year, however, September of 2019 was only slightly beaten by this year, as it was recorded at $83 billion at that time.
The monthly rise in volume comes thanks to higher levels of activity across various other transaction times. This includes swaps, forwards, non-deliverable forwards (NDFs), as well as options. As is the norm, all of these markets had reported their best volumes within March, with this month showing an ADV of $342 billion. This stands at 2% higher than last month, with August 2020 recording $337 billion in ADV.
A Global Trend
The figures Refinitiv posts reflect the common trend that was observed within the monthly figures across various trading platforms. These platforms clocked in record-breaking trade volumes for the first quarter, then suffered lackluster levels of activity in its wake. Now, however, after several flat months, the major institutional spot FX platforms have shown that the FX market is starting to bounce bank, recording considerable jumpers within the AVG of various exchanges.
