The Financial Futures Association of Japan (FFAJ) today released its monthly FX margin trading statistics report for August 2017. August was a steady month for retail FX brokers in Japan. Data from 54 licensed retail FX brokers indicates the end of the decline in Forex volumes which has been the trend this year. The rise in volume could be due to extreme Volatility in the market due to geopolitical tensions.
Total FX over the counter (OTC) trading volume stood at $3.24 billion (¥357.6 trillion) in August 2017, an increase of 16.75 percent from $2.77 billion (¥306.3 trillion) in July 2017. The USD/JPY and cross yen volume increased by 14.14 percent to $2.94 billion (¥324.6 trillion) in August 2017 from $2.57 billion (¥284.4 trillion) in July 2017.
Total open positions in the month of August increased by almost 3 percent, coming in at $550 million (¥60.89 billion), in which traders added new long positions worth $20 million (¥2.3 billion) to $350 million (¥38.41 billion) and decreased their short positions by almost $60 million ( ¥6.1 billion) to $200 million (¥22.47 billion). In USD/JPY and cross yen open positions, net long positions decreased by $20 million (¥ 2 billion). Total short and long positions stood at $330 million (¥36.09 billion) and $170 million (¥19.16 billion) respectively.
At the end of the month, the yen closed at 110.49 against the dollar with the highest and lowest being 110.93 and 108.33 respectively. Previously, only January and May saw growth in volumes this year. The data for August is a positive relief for Japan's FX brokers who were struggling with low volumes.
Earlier this month the FFAJ released its Q1 FX trading volume data, in which a sharp decline in trading volume was reported.
