Moscow Exchange reports $350 billion in November FX volumes
FX trading volumes continued its upward momentum at Moscow Exchange (MOEX) during November, buoyed by a steady rise in volatility coupled with a multi-year effort to bring new business to the platform.
According to a monthly report from Russia’s largest institutional trading venue, total FX market turnover was RUB 26.1 trillion ($350 billion), up 5 percent from the RUB 24.9 trillion ($340 billion), which exchanged hands in October 2021. However, MOEX’s turnover was lower compared with volumes from the same month a year earlier, having dropped 4 percent when weighed against RUB 27.3 trillion in November 2020.
November 2021’s turnover included spot trades of RUB 9.2 trillion ($124 billion). This surpassed the RUB 7.7 trillion in the previous month, while swap trades and forwards totaled RUB 16.9 trillion ($228 billion).
In terms of the average daily volumes in November 2021, the metric printed RUB 1.24 trillion ($16.8 billion), which is up from RUB 1.18 trillion ($14.2 billion) in the prior month, Moex said in a statement. Additionally, year-on-year, the ADV figure was down 5 percent from RUB 1.36 trillion or $17.1 billion in 2020.
MOEX would open the FX auction this month to be held from 6:50am to 7:00am for all spot instruments. The exchange already started trading foreign currency, gold and derivatives three hours earlier from March 1.
MOEX, which runs one of the largest FX trading platforms, revealed in October it raised its stake in BierbaumPro AG, whose main asset is the OTC FX platform NTPro. The transaction increases MOEX’s ownership from 29.5% to 95%.
MOEX expands stocks offering, extends trading hours
Elsewhere, more than 80 stocks and depositary receipts of leading international companies including Nasdaq, Airbnb, Domino’s Pizza, Gartner, Motorola Solutions were admitted to trading on Moscow Exchange. This brings the total number of foreign securities available for trading on Russia’s premier bourse to 521.
MOEX says it plans to make more international securities available for trading in the future based on demand from banks, brokers, asset managers and their clients.
Russia’s largest institutional trading venue also extended the hours during which stocks can be traded from this winter in a move aimed at attracting a greater number of investors.
Effective December 6, MOEX will open the equity market three hours earlier, namely at 6:50am Moscow time. This extends the daily session to run for 17 hours. Currently, the trading hours on the market are from 9:50am to 23:50.
