New data from FXCM confirms that December 2010 was a particularly quiet month.Retail customer trading volume totalled $233 billion, 28% lower than November 2010 ($322 billion) and 5% lower than December 2009 ($245 billion). The number of client trades was also down but less dramatically: an average of 270,656 retail client trades per day in December 2010, 22% lower than November and 1% lower than December 2009.
CLS figures also reflect the festive season: CLS settled a daily average of 690,041 instructions in December. This was way down on November’s 882,669 instructions, but a 9% increase on December 2009 (an average of 631,155 instructions settled). Average daily values settled in the month were slightly down at $4.19 trillion. Taking the year as a whole, the figures support my impression that volumes were only slightly higher: in 2010, average daily volumes settled were up 33% on 2009 (792,900 against 597,977) and average daily values were up 22% ($4.1 trillion in 2010 against $3.4 trillion in 2009).