Beyond the remarkable trading activity that took place in Japan, the big surprise in January’s volume data was a 46% month over month jump at EBS. The increase led the ECN FX platform to take the top spot among publicly reporting venues as it leaped above Thomson Reuters which held the pole position during 2012. Following those figures, EBS posted its February volume today. For the month, average daily volume (ADV) was $149 billion, a 5% increase from January’s $141.3 billion number.
During the month, ICAP’s other trading venues also saw growth, with US Treasury, US Repo, and European Repo trading all posting single digit month over month growth.
The highlight though was in the EBS FX unit. After struggling during the majority of 2012, which led to a change of dealing rules being implemented, that sacrificed tighter spreads for larger Market Depth , the venue appears to have regained its stride. Also, with the company’s relationship based Trading Platform , EBS Direct, poised to be fully launched soon, ICAP’s FX division could see further market share gains. With FXall already utilizing both a relationship and anonymous trading platform, and Thomson Reuters integrating more of the two groups together, we should be seeing the competition of venue offerings intensify during 2013.
