February 2025 confirmed that financial markets entered the new year strongly, maintaining the trend of increasing volumes in the foreign exchange (FX) sector. Although total volumes may have performed slightly worse, an upward trend was observed in all major trading centers in terms of average daily volume (ADV).

Asia and USA See Increased Average Daily FX Volumes in February

Click 365, the currency trading platform on the Tokyo Financial Exchange (TFX), reported a monthly volume increase of over 5% to a total of 1.8 million contracts. For the first time in a while, this also represented a year-on-year increase. Although it was only 1.6%, this measure had been experiencing strong declines in recent months.

The average daily volume stood at 90,700 contracts. The USD/JPY trading pair remained the most active, accounting for nearly one-third of all transactions on Click 365 with a volume of 506,300 contracts and a 2.5% increase month-on-month.

In the United States, FX volumes also grew, but not in absolute terms. The total volume fell to $960.8 billion from the near-record $1.04 trillion achieved in January. However, it's important to note that the last month had two fewer trading days than January (20 vs. 22). As a result, the ADV was higher than the previous month, reaching $48 billion, the highest since August 2024.

Europe Aligns with the Trend

Euronext FX's Fastmatch did not align with the upward trend seen on other continents, and its volumes decreased for another consecutive month, slipping to $589 billion from just under $610 billion reported a month earlier. However, similar to the USA, the ADV increased due to fewer trading days, amounting to $29.4 billion compared to $27.7 billion.

The same applies to the German stock exchange-owned 360T. In February, the total FX volume was $677.8 billion, down from $760.8 billion reported in January. However, considering the ADV indicator and fewer trading sessions, the venue achieved a modest increase from $33 billion to $33.9 billion.