But this is my column and, within reason, I set its tone. As I pointed out only this week when I apologized to someone over something I supposedly did that caused offence, you can take the boy out of southeast London, but you can’t take southeast London out of the boy. Anyway, as you can see, I’m in a positive mood this week, which will disappoint those who feel I only focus on negative aspects in this wonderful, great and, as the authoritative BIS Triennial Central Bank Survey reported on Tuesday, absolutely huge FX market.
The BIS Survey was interesting, even if its headline results shouldn’t have come as a surprise. Allow me the indulgence of giving myself a pat on the back. In April, I said turnover in the spot market was now around $1 trillion; only last Friday, I made a price of $3.25 trillion for total daily traditional turnover. Pretty much bang on, as it turns out. Once again that the old adage “once a dealer, always a dealer” still runs true.
In reality, neither prediction required rocket science. Possibly to the chagrin of various independent research boutiques, which in the past have been able to garner cheap publicity by predicting the size of the market, various central banks now publish semi-annual data on turnover.