Hotspot Volumes Suffer in August

Leading FX ECN, Hotspot has announced dismal figures for the month of August, a trend seen across the FX markets. August is typically a slow month as most traders are on vacation, however August 2011 was extremely volatile and volumes reflected the market sentiment.

Hotspot is part of the Knight Group a leading market maker in US Equities . The firm suffered a major computer glitch which resulted in a loss of $440 million. Hotspot's current figures are not far from the daily trade volumes the large retail FX brokers achieve.

Volume Snapshot

In August 2012, Hotspot FX experienced a decrease in volume resulting in an average Daily Volume (ADV) of $21.0 billion with a total of $482.2 billion transacted on the platform. Among publicly reported spot FX volumes (Hotspot FX, ICAP/EBS, Reuters, FXall), Hotspot FX’s market share was 8.4% in August 2012; up from 7.8% in August 2011.

August 2012 Statistics (Single Count, USD):

• Hotspot FX posted an ADV of $21.0 billion. (based on 23 trading days)

§ ADV declined 19.2% versus July 2012. (July 2012 ADV: $25.9 billion)

§ ADV declined 33.5% versus August 2011. (August 2011 ADV: $31.5 billion)

• Total Volume: $482.2 billion.

Monthly Statistics:

Volume Breakdown

In August 2012, the Americas sessions decreased by 1.41%, versus, the European session which continued its positive trend and gained .36 % in market share from July. The Asian session increased as well by 1.04% in August.

Volume percentages by time zone were:

The Top five currency pairs by volume percentage were as follows:

Generally, the majority of our Top 20 pairs remained unchanged in regards to rankings and experienced modest volume fluctuations. The exception being JPY based pairs, which climbed slightly in the ranks. Most notable movement occurred in: EUR/USD which remained firmly as #1 despite the 1.63% decrease in activity. USD/JPY regained the #3 position due to a 1.58% increase in activity. Lastly, GBP/JPY climbed two places to become 13^th most active resulting from a .25% increase in trading.

Relative Volume Chart

Hotspot’s August ADV compares to the following results from other reporting venues: