According to the Bank for International Settlements triennial report of 2019, the foreign exchange (forex / FX) market cap averaged $6.6 trillion per day ($6.6 trillion daily foreign exchange (forex / FX) volume). In 2016. it was 5.1 trillion per day. So, the foreign exchange (forex / FX) is the most actively traded market in the world and more than $6 trillion are traded on average each day. By comparison, this volume exceeds world equities trading volumes by 20-30 times.
More than 1,200 financial institutions in 53 countries contributed to the 2019 Triennial Survey. The final outcomes are being published every December.
The US dollar retained its dominant currency status, being on one side of 88% of all trades. The share of trades with the euro on one side expanded somewhat, to 32%. By contrast, the share of trades involving the Japanese yen fell some 5 percentage points, although the yen remained the third most actively traded currency (on one side of 17% of all trades).
As in previous surveys, currencies of emerging market economies (EMEs) again gained market share, reaching 25% of overall global turnover. Turnover in the Renminbi, however, grew only slightly faster than the aggregate market, and the Renminbi did not climb further in the global rankings. It remained the eighth most traded currency, with a share of 4.3%, ranking just after the Swiss franc.
FX trading with “other financial institutions”, ie those other than reporting dealers, again exceeded inter-dealer trading volumes, reaching $3.6 trillion in April 2019, or 55% of global turnover. This was due to a higher share of trading with non-reporting banks as well as with hedge funds and proprietary trading firms (PTFs), while trading with institutional investors declined.
In April 2019, sales desks in five countries – the United Kingdom, the United States, Hong Kong SAR, Singapore and Japan – facilitated 79% of all foreign exchange trading. Trading activity in the United Kingdom and Hong Kong SAR grew by more than the global average. Mainland China also recorded a significant rise in trading activity, making it the eighth largest FX trading centre (up from 13th in April 2016).
While the volume of spot trades increased relative to April 2016, the expansion was less strong compared with other instruments – hence the share of spot trades continued to fall, to 30% in 2019, compared with 33% in 2016. By contrast, FX swaps continued to gain in market share, accounting for 49% of total FX market turnover in April 2019. Trading of outright forwards also picked up, with a large part of the rise due to the segment of non-deliverable forwards (NDFs).