The Tokyo Financial Exchange (TFX) is the first major institution to release its volumes numbers for the month of April and the amount of exchange listed FX margin contracts traded during the month has dropped by 14.6% when compared to March numbers to 2,088,673, or 94,941 contracts daily.

The year-on-year figures are now 70% lower, however considering the record activity in Japanese yen trading during the same period last year, this does not come as a surprise. The subdued trading activity is attributed to the record low volatility in major FX pairs. The sole currency pair that more or less maintained decent levels of trading during the month was the USD/JPY, which only dropped by 1.7%.

Join the iFX EXPO Asia and discover your gateway to the Asian Markets

Cross trading slumped led by the EUR/JPY dropping by 30.8% on March’s numbers and the AUD/JPY falling by 20.3% to confirm the low expectations for volumes in the first month of the second quarter of 2014.

In contracts Exchange Equity Index contracts traded on the TFX have rebounded during the month of April, rising by 5.3% over March, led by Nikkei 225 contracts which bounced by 6.5% over last month. That said, the figure is still way lower than last year by 42.1%.