The Financial Futures Association of Japan (FFAJ) today reported its monthly statistics bulletin for over-the-counter (OTC) retail FX trading for the month of February across its 53 members showing broad rises when compared to the previous month.

The association said that USD/JPY volatility and overall strength came into play, affecting volumes as the currency traded between 111.60 and 121.40, with an average rate of 115.02, while ending the month on the strong side near 112.99 according to data from the Bank of Japan.

Using end of month rate data to convert USD equivalents, trading volumes across FFAJ members totaled ¥5.939 trillion ($52.56 billion) at the end of February 2016, up 11.8% from ¥5.309 trillion ($46.98 billion at constant currency) during January, but lower year-over-year when compared to the February 2015 totals that Finance Magnates previously reported.

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The total number of open positions as measured by long and short trades were reported as lower despite the increase in volume, with ¥54,162 billion versus ¥59,215 billion in the prior month, a decrease of ¥5,052 billion month-over-month. That total consisted of ¥14,488 billion short positions, and ¥39,674 billion long positions, which together made up the ¥54,162 billion total.

As an example, the FFAJ compared the increase to the on-exchange February volumes from the Tokyo Financial Exchanges (TFE) which were up 2% when compared to January trading volumes.

Analysis on a per currency breakdown of volumes shows that gains in trading volumes in GBP/USD, GBP/JPY, and USD/JPY had offset the combined decrease across all other currency pairs reported by FFAJ from its members.