Institutional FX Trading Volumes Resumed in May, Only Refinitiv Saw a Decline

The trading volumes of leading institutional FX and ECN platforms in May 2023 have been revealed, generally showing an overall rise. Only Refinitiv notched decrease in average daily FX trading volumes.

The report covers Average Daily Volume (ADV) of institutional FX trading volumes from six major venues, namely Cboe FX, CLS, Euronext FX, FxSpotStream, Refinitiv and 360T, as shown in the chart below.

Five of the six companies reported an increase in average daily FX trading volumes in May 2023 versus the prior month. Overall, 360T has the biggest percent of MoM increase of 10.3 percent, followed by Euronext FX and Cboe FX with 9.4 percent and 2.77 percent. CLS and FxSpotStream are showing a MoM rise of 1.63 percent and 0.36 percent respectively. In May, only Refinitiv notched a 6.25 percent decrease in average daily FX trading volumes.

The detailing trading volumes for each venues are as follows:

Cboe FX

Cboe Spot reported a total trading volume of $938,994 million for the month, compared to $793,218 million in April 2023. The Average Daily Volume (ADV) for May 2023 reached $40,826 million, up 2.77 percent compared to $39,661 million in the prior month.

CLS

In May 2023, CLS saw average daily traded volumes of USD1.89 trillion, an increase of 1.3 percent compared to May 2022. Over the same period, FX forward volumes were up noticeably by 22.1 percent, FX swap volumes increased by 3.1 percent, while FX spot volumes decreased by 9 percent. On a monthly basis, CLS’ FX spot volumes increased by 1.63 percent.

Euronext FX

Total volume of Euronext's FX for the month recorded $495,630 million, an increase of 25.8% compared to $393,853 million in April 2023 and a decrease of 2.7% compared to $509,133 million in May 2022.

ADV of Euronext FX came in at $21,549 million, 9.4% higher than $19,693 million in the prior month and 6.9% lower than $23,142 million in the same period of last year.

FxSpotStream

The monthly trading volumes reached $1.28 trillion, an increased of 16 percent compared to $1.1 trillion in April. The average daily volume (ADV) for the month stood at $55.5 billion, growing slightly over the previous month’s $55.3 billion. The figure, however, declined 5 percent from $58.4 billion in May 2022.

Refinitiv

Refinitiv recorded the average daily trading volumes (ADV) of $424 billion for the month on its main FX trading services.

The FX trading volumes across Matching and FXall platforms experienced a drop of 7.6% compared to $459 billion in the prior month and a drop of 2.1% compared to $473 billion in the same period of last year.

Refinitiv' Spot FX volumes, partly owned by Thomson Reuters, came in at $90 billion,​ 6.3% lower than $96 billion in April 2023 and 7.2% lower than $97 billion in May 2022.

360T

360T's average daily volume was $25.8 billion in May 2023, which represents an increase of 10.3 percent compared to $23.4 billion in April 2023.