This marked a reversal of fortune for Thomson Reuters, at which trading volumes have been on average nearly 10% lower than volumes at EBS over the past six months. Average daily spot FX volumes on ICAP’s EBS platform in November were $144.6 billion, a decrease of 15% month on month and an 11% fall over the previous year.
While Thomson Reuters also reported a second consecutive monthly drop in FX volumes last month, the fall in activity was comparatively smaller.
The average amount traded daily on Thomson Reuters’ main FX spot trading services – Thomson Reuters Dealing, Matching and Reuters Trading for FX – was $150 billion in November, a 3% fall over last month but a year on year increase of 2%.
The changing trend in volumes growth is likely to be a result of changes in trading interest across the currency pairs in which the two platforms have differing strengths.
“In the last few weeks there has been an increase in interest in Commonwealth currencies such as AUDUSD, USDCAD and GBPUSD, NZDUSD where Reuters has traditionally been strong,” an ICAP spokesperson told EuromoneyFXnews.
“Conversely, EURUSD and USDJPY, where EBS is very strong, has gone down slightly as a proportion of total volumes – this isn’t too surprising given the current environment”.
FX turnover on EBS is now down close to 23% from the company’s record month in August when an average $187 billion changed hands.
“The lower volumes reflects the well-reported slowdown in November due to general market uncertainty and a difficult comparator given a very active November 2010, our second strongest month last year,” ICAP said in a statement.