On Monday, the Financial Futures Association of Japan (FFAJ) has published its over-the-counter (OTC) Forex margin trading figures for September. The results, which measure the trading activity of members of the regulator, showed a decline in trading activity for the fourth consecutive month.
The FFAJ is a self-regulatory body established in 1989 to govern the Japanese futures market. In September of this year, the number of members of the regulator remains unchanged from August, coming in at 53.
During September, the total over-the-counter (OTC) trading activity was ¥266 trillion ($2.4 trillion). While this might seem like a lot, it's actually down by more than 10 percent month-on-month, as August posted a total trading volume of ¥298 trillion.
Since May of this year, which recorded a monthly trading volume of ¥371 trillion, OTC trading activity for FFAJ members has been on a constant downward trend. This is despite a consistent amount of OTC Retail FX Margin Trading Operators.
Taking a look at this monthly decline, August posted a narrow drop of 1 percent from month-on-month, whereas July’s volumes were down 7.61 percent from June of this year. The monthly drop from June to May was even more noticeable, at more than 12 percent.
The trading activity for USDJPY, Cross Yen was not any better, coming in at ¥228 trillion. This represents a loss of 11.3 percent from August’s figure of ¥258 trillion. On-exchange contracts in September 2018 continued on this declining trend, falling by 17.2 percent to reach ¥2.1 trillion.
FFAJ OTC Binary Options
The FFAJ also reported the OTC binary options trading volume of its members today. During the month, the total trading volume was ¥33.1 billion. This is a decline of more than 13 percent from August, which experienced a total trading volume of ¥37.5 billion. The total number of trading Payments was 18.8 billion. This is also down from August’s number of 20.6 billion.
The decline in trading comes in spite of an increase in active accounts of 11,423 among the FFAJ’s members.
