After seeing solid trading volumes during the month of March, Nasdaq has published its monthly volumes for April of 2020, revealing a drop in trading as the peak of COVID-19 volatility subsides.
As Finance Magnates reported, Nasdaq achieved a solid start to the year, with the first quarter seeing solid trading volumes. Taking a look first at fixed income and commodities trading, during the month of April, the exchange operator posted a trading volume of $397 billion for US fixed income, which represents a significant drop from the previous month by 50.2 percent. On a yearly comparison, trading has fallen by 48.8 percent.
European fixed income also saw both a monthly and yearly decline, with the total volume for April coming in at 2.1 million contracts. This translates to a decline of 43.2 percent against March of 2020 and 22.2 percent when compared to April of 2019.
US equity options see stronger performance on Nasdaq
When taking a look at US equity options volume traded via Nasdaq, although April has seen lower trading volumes, the difference is not quite as pronounced. With 201 million contracts traded during April, this is only slightly less than the 205 million contracts traded in March. However, year-on-year, last month actually noted an increase in the number of contracts traded of 50.0 percent.
European options and futures volume, however, wasn’t as robust in April, with 5.6 million contracts traded during the month. This is much lower than the 12.2 million contracts traded in March of 2020, and it is still lower than the 7.7 million contracts traded in the same period of the previous year.
Looking at cash Equities , a total of 46.064 billion US matched equity shares were traded during the month. This is a drop of 29.8 percent on a monthly comparison, but it is stronger by 74.9 percent against April of 2019.
