The Financial Futures Association of Japan (FFAJ) has released its monthly statistics for its over-the-counter (OTC) retail Forex margin trading for this July today. Again, the total trading volume declined in July 2018, following a lackluster June this year.
The FFAJ is a self-regulatory body established in 1989 to govern the Japanese futures market.
Forex Trading volume decline continues
During the month, the firm reported a total OTC FX trading volume of $2.7 trillion (JPY 301 trillion) amongst its members. This is down by 7.61 percent from June’s volume, which reported total trading of $2.93 trillion (JPY 326 trillion).
June’s volumes, while higher than July’s, was also month-on-month from May. In fact, the drop in trading volume was more than 12 percent, as May recorded a total volume of $3.34 trillion (JPY 371 trillion).
The total trading volume for USDJPY, cross yen, was $2.38 trillion (JPY 265 trillion). This was also down by 5.8 percent when compared to the previous month. However, the volume for on-exchange contracts increased month-on-month in July. During the month the total traded volume was $21.8 billion (JPY 2.42 trillion), up 1.77 percent from June’s volumes of $21.3 billion (JPY 2.37 trillion).
Taking a look at open positions, in July the total open positions were $62.3 billion (JPY 6.93 trillion). This was slightly down from June 2018 volumes. The total short positions traded during the month was $25.6 billion (JPY 2.85 trillion), this was up by $886.6 million (JPY 98.5 billion). Total long positions in July, on the other hand, fell month-on-month, coming in at $36.7 billion (JPY 4.08 trillion).
Earlier this year,Finance Magnates reported that the FFAJ released its quarterly report of member activity. Despite there only being a minute increase in its membership ranks, the Japanese regulator reported substantial increases in on-exchange and over-the-counter futures trading volumes amongst its members.
