The Japan Exchange Group (JPX), which operates multiple securities exchanges including the Tokyo Stock Exchange and the Osaka Securities Exchange, has reported its monthly trading volumes for the first month of 2019.
Unlike the past few months, which have managed to record consistently healthy gains, January’s results are rather sluggish. In fact, the trading volume for both derivatives and stocks on the JPX for the first month of 2019 fell on a monthly comparison.
Specifically, the number of derivatives contracts traded during the month of January 2019 was 28,326,383 with a daily average of 1,490,862. This is 26 percent or 9,952,353 contracts less than that achieved in the final month of 2018.
In terms of trading value, total derivatives trading on the JPX registered a value of ¥198.78 trillion. While this might seem like an impressive figure, it is in fact 47.2 percent, or ¥177.89 trillion, less than the figure achieved in December of 2018 which was ¥375 trillion.
During the month of January, the Nikkei 225 mini had a total trading volume of 20,931,812 contracts, which translates to a daily average of 1,101,674 contracts. Again, when compared to December of 2018 this is 16.9 percent less. However, on a yearly comparison, January’s figure is up by 5.5 percent.
January woes hurt ETFs on the JPX
Taking a look at exchange-traded funds (ETFs) the total trading volume during the month was 913,798 contracts. Unsurprisingly, when compared to the previous month, January’s figure has lost 26.9 percent. But it is still up when measured against January of 2018 by 4.1 percent.
The trading value for ETFs was ¥3.73 trillion on the JPX in January. Again, this was down on both a monthly and yearly comparison by 32.2 percent and 15.7 percent respectively. The daily average trading value was ¥196.36 billion.
