Thomson Reuters (NYSE:TRI) said that financial market turbulence in February has kept FX traders busy, boosting volumes along with volatility. Price swings in the $5-trillion a day foreign exchange market jumped to fresh multi-year highs last month.
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Volatility is back to FX markets after a subdued Q4 2017, which was one of the calmest quarters in more than eight years. 2018 started off on a promising note, and the first two months were characterized by a number of influential factors across global markets, including interest rates and fiscal policies speculation in both the US and Europe, which ultimately helped spark volatility.
After three straight quarters of muted results, Thomson Reuters had a wild start to the new year, and that appears to have translated into record-breaking trading volumes across its foreign exchange business.
The wild run lately has made a profitable opportunity for industry players, from major venues, including the likes of NEX Markets, to an array of retail-focused FX brokerages.
In particular, Thomson Reuters saw a total average daily volume (ADV) of its foreign exchange (FX) products, including spot, forwards, swaps options and non-deliverable forwards (NDF), coming in at $463 billion in February 2018. The figure represents an increase of 7.2 percent month-over-month from $432.1 billion in January 2018, which was also a record month. It has also outpaced the trading turnover from the same month a year ago, marking a gain of 37 percent year-over-year.
Thomson Reuters also successfully onboarded more buy-side clients and Liquidity providers to its enhanced Multilateral Trading Facility (MTF), post-MiFID II implementation, the company said.
