So far, 2019 has proven to be a difficult year for the Japan Exchange Group (JPX) in terms of trading volumes. This Tuesday the firm has released its volumes for the month of April, which is the latest month to show a lackluster performance.
The Group, which operates the Tokyo Stock Exchange and the Osaka Securities Exchange , reported a slow start to the year, and the month of April is no exception. Specifically, the number of derivatives contracts traded during the month was 23,626,345.
When comparing this against the previous month, this figure is lower by 26.5 percent or 8,533,810 contracts. On an annual comparison, the trading volume has fallen by 9.3 percent.
The decline in trading value for all derivative contracts was even more pronounced during April, dropping by 40.5 percent month-on-month to reach ¥197.2 trillion ($1.782 trillion). When measuring this value against the same month of the previous year, it is down slightly by 0.4 percent.
During the month of April, the Nikkei 225 mini had a total trading volume of 16,862,083 contracts, which translates to a daily average of 843,104 contracts. When compared to March this is 19.7 percent less, and on a yearly comparison, April’s figure has fallen by 11.2 percent.
ETF Trading Volume Falls in April for JPX
Moving on to exchange-traded funds (ETFs), the performance in April does not look much brighter. In the month, trading volume came in at 754,575 contracts, which is an average daily volume of 37,729. This is a decline of 4.4 percent month-on-month. However, on an annual comparison, April’s figure is higher by 4.5 percent.
Trading value for ETFs follows a similar trend. During February, trading value for the segment was ¥3.3 trillion. When measuring this figure against that achieved in March, it is 1.7 percent less. Against April of 2018, last month’s result has fallen by 16 percent.
