NEX Markets has reported its EBS electronic Trading Platform volumes for the month ending April 30, 2018. The latest figures at the venue corroborated a recent downtrend in volumes across the industry, snapping momentum seen in Q1 of this year.
Despite the end of April seeing a sizable uptick in Volatility , the past 30 days have largely been characterized by stagnation. Indeed, the main factor for the decline in volumes can be attributed to narrow trading ranges that have largely dominated the month of April.
This contrasts with the beginning of the year, which had been accompanied by a massive increase in trading volumes as traders flocked to sell the US dollar. This trend does appear to have been reversing, however. Consequently, NEX Markets’ EBS volumes recorded a negative reading for the second straight month.
Looking specifically at spot FX trading at NEX Markets’ EBS electronic trading platform, a figure of $83.4 billion daily was reported during April 2018. This correlated a decline of 10.0 percent relative to $92.7 billion daily in March 2018. However, on a year-over-year basis, the latest reading in April was inverted higher over its 2017 counterpart, climbing by a margin of 10.0 percent from just $76.1 billion daily in April 2017.
Fixed income market review
Looking to US Treasuries, EBS Markets also again saw a sizable decline in its volumes on a monthly basis. The latest reading was reported at $155.1 billion per day in April 2018, down by 17.9 percent on a monthly basis from $188.9 billion in March 2018. The figure was also lower by over 7.0 percent when measured against its April 2017 counterpart ($167.0 million).
Towards the end of the month, rising yields across US Treasuries ultimately led to a stronger USD and an increase in volumes as short- and long-term players alike looked to flip their USD positions.
