Average daily traded volume in the global currency market dropped 6.9 percent in December from the previous month, although volumes shot up 13 percent from a year earlier, data from settlement system CLS showed on Thursday. CLS, a major settler of trades in the foreign exchange market, said the average daily input volume of instructions submitted last month was $1.562 trillion, down from $1.677 trillion in November.
In December, 2016 volumes stood at $1.383 trillion, CLS said in a statement. Persistently low levels of volatility in recent months have crimped foreign exchange trading volumes, investors say, and banks and other traders are looking to the expected unwinding of record monetary stimulus by central banks to bring back more volatility.