Institutional FX Volumes Slipped in July as Two Yen Intervention Days Carried the Month

Institutional foreign exchange volumes declined in July across the four largest trading venues that report monthly data. Average daily volumes fell between 1.2% and 7.8% month-over-month at FXSpotStream, Cboe FX, 360T, and Euronext FX, although all four remained well above their year-ago levels.

July 30 and 31 were the busiest trading sessions of the month. Japan’s Ministry of Finance bought yen on the Thursday, and the U.S. Treasury joined the effort on Friday in the first coordinated intervention between the two governments since 2011, as confirmed on August 3. Those two days alone reshaped the monthly volume profile. For example, Euronext FX averaged $25.73 billion over the other 21 sessions, just 1.2% above its July 2025 average, while the full-month average of $28.16 billion was 10.8% higher.

FXSpotStream posted the smallest decline, with total average daily volume of $158.11 billion, down 1.2% from June and up 51.7% from July 2025. Spot trading accounted for $112.22 billion, with swaps, forwards, and other products contributing $45.88 billion. Over 23 trading days, the total volume reached approximately $3.64 trillion. The platform’s spot volume alone surged 64.1% year-over-year.

Cboe FX handled $1.31 trillion, or $56.79 billion per day on a single-counted basis, a 4.8% drop from June but a 24.5% increase from the same month last year. Comparisons across venues remain complicated due to differing reporting methodologies: Cboe reports single-counted notional, FXSpotStream includes non-spot products in its headline, and 360T reports spot only.

360T’s spot average daily volume was $40.39 billion, down 4.7% from June and up 20.9% year-over-year, according to calculations based on the Deutsche Boerse platform’s daily data. The platform traded $61.65 billion on July 30 and $56.94 billion on July 31, its two largest days. Excluding those sessions, the July average would have fallen to $38.59 billion.

Euronext FX showed a more pronounced pattern. Its average of $28.16 billion per day was 7.8% below June and 10.8% above July 2025, but the intervention days alone generated $107.33 billion, representing 16.6% of the month’s total volume from just 8.7% of trading sessions. The venue has not returned to March levels, when a dollar rally pushed institutional activity to its 2026 high, with an average of $39.71 billion per day—roughly 41% higher than July.

“We will not hesitate to participate in further joint intervention,” Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said.

Meanwhile, Japan’s Tokyo Financial Exchange reported a sharp increase in Click 365 FX daily futures volume, reaching 2,634,199 contracts in July, up 43.1% from June and 86.6% from a year earlier. Average daily volume stood at 114,532 contracts, a 36.9% rise. The Turkish lira against the yen dominated, accounting for 43.4% of total volume with 1,142,584 contracts, up 62.8% month-over-month and 460.6% above July 2025. Dollar-yen ranked second at 515,253 contracts, more than doubling month-over-month but still less than half the lira pair’s total. The TRY/JPY carry trade, funded by the low-yield yen, has become the exchange’s dominant contract, overtaking dollar-yen in June.