FX Trading Slumps across the Board at the CME Group as Volumes Fall 10% in November

Following a strong September and October for FX trading, early indications are that activity declined during November. Earlier in the day, results from EBS showed average daily volumes (ADV) dropping five percent in November compared to October.

Following these figures, monthly trading figures from the CME Group showed that ADV for total options and futures products fell 10.5% month-over-month. During November, over 17.6 million contracts were traded at an average daily clip of 880,454 contracts, or $105 billion on a notional level. Despite the monthly decline, trading was still well above the same period last year, increasing 29% from November 2013.

Among individual contracts, volume declines were experienced across the board, with no major currency experiencing month-over-month increases in volumes. Leading all currencies was the euro followed by the Japanese yen and Australian dollar (see chart below). Volumes were impacted by the lack of fundamental events needed to trigger Volatility higher as compared with September and October, both of which featured numerous political and economic events.