UK-based NEX Group plc, formerly known as ICAP plc, today reported trading volumes on its electronic foreign exchange (FX) platform EBS for February 2017. The metrics showed a weak performance in the group’s leveraged currency trading business as the new year got off to a calm start while no events were able to whip up a market frenzy. In fact, by some metrics, it was one of the calmest months in years.
More specifically, NEX’s EBS currency-Trading Platform handled $80.7 billion daily in February 2017, constituting a drop of 13.0 percent month-on-month from $83.8 billion in January 2017. Expanding the scope to encompass a yearly timeframe, EBS’s last month’s volumes are also lower by more than 21 percent year-on-year compared to $102.6 billion reported back in February 2016.
The latest figures also mirrored what had been a relatively narrow range of consolidation across EBS’s volumes over the past few months, which have stayed around the $80.0 billion threshold.
The eerie market lull across the board
This stagnant performance in February was shared by other institutional venues as a whole and has thus far not been specific to one exchange. GAIN Capital’s GTX, Fastmatch and CBOE’s Hotspot have all reported monthly declines amid lower Volatility , as Finance Magnates reported this week.
NEX Group’s US Treasury activity during February 2017 had a similar narrative, given a drop of nearly 17 percent year-on-year in average daily volumes. During the previous month, US Treasury activity volumes came in at $173.4 billion, down from $208.0 billion in the same month a year earlier. Across a monthly interval, February’s volumes reflect a 3.0 percent weakness from $178.5 billion in January 2017.
In terms of US repo rates, volumes were lower 5 percent year on year to an average of $202.0 billion and 6 percent lower on a monthly basis. In a different vein, European repo volumes were higher 15 percent on 2016 figures, coming in at EUR 214.6 billion, and also up 3 percent relative to January 2017.
