MOEX & GAIN Capital’s December Trading Metrics Released

Moscow Exchange reported a 31 percent increase in total FX volume in December from a month earlier, with trades totaling 25.6 trillion rubles, up from 18.7 trillion in November. This translates to an average daily volume of 1,164.1 billion rubles.

Turnover in the Derivatives Market surged 137 percent to 8.5 trillion rubles on an annualized basis, up from 3.6 trillion in December 2013. This means there were 168.9 million contracts in December 2014, up from 83.9 million contracts. Out of the total, 971 billion were options, while futures totaled 7.6 trillion rubles.

The volumes of FX derivatives grew 370 percent on an annual basis to 5.7 trillion rubles. Trading volumes of FX options rose to 748.4 billion rubles, up from 13.9 billion rubles in December 2013.

Spot trades totaled 10.0 trillion rubles, while swap trades stood at 15.7 trillion rubles, up from 6.9 trillion ruble worth of spot trades and 11.8 trillion rubles of swap trades in November 2014.

Meanwhile, leading FX firm GAIN Capital reported an increase of 6.8 percent in retail OTC trading volumes to $236.1 billion in December 2014 from a month earlier. However, it saw a marked decline of 6 percent in institutional trades, with the average daily GTX volume dropping 6 percent to $17.2 billion.

GAIN Capital had reported a 19 percent decline in retail OTC trading volumes in November to $221 billion, compared with 273.4 billion in October. The December’s figure of $236.1 billion still falls short of this year’s high of $238.9 billion touched in September.

The institutional metrics were dismal, with volumes (average daily GTX volume) plunging 6 percent to $17.2 billion, compared with $19.6 billion in November 2014. However, on an annual basis, the December’s figure is a 3.9 percent increase from December 2013.