Monthly Securities Finance Market Review: September 2024
Equilend’s Head of Trading Solutions, Mike Norwood, shares his monthly market review for securities finance, highlighting September trends and some all-time highs seen across NGT. The following data has been measured and derived from Equilend NGT.
Trading by Sector for September: The Global Picture
September saw 2,732,788 trades executed versus $3.01T (-4% m/m, +10% y/y) and closed out what was a record quarter for Equilend’s NGT platform. Q3 sets a new benchmark with 8.4m trades against $8.59T, representing a 6% increase over Q2 and an 11% gain from Q3 2023. Within the equity space, Canada and the US were the bright spots as EMEA and APAC saw softening demand with trade counts down 8% and 9% respectively. Fixed income saw strong demand across the board with US, EMEA, APAC, and South America, all seeing double digit percentage growth.
Central bank activity was the key theme of September with the US Federal Reserve boosting markets with a 50bps rate cut and both the European Central Bank and Swiss National Bank both reducing by 25bps. This drove global indices broadly higher while benefitting bond funds as yields dropped. Volatility as indicated by the CBOE Volatility Index (VIX) and the EURO STOXX 50 (VSTOXX) started and ended the month at peaks but remained relatively suppressed through the middle. The volatility was triggered by the erosion of recessionary fears on the back of strong US economic data and the rate drop, before the markets began digesting escalating geopolitical conflict in the middle east.
Looking more broadly at Q3 data, fixed income demand drove the increased volumes as all regions saw increased trade counts compared to the same period in 2023. The US (+35%) and APAC (+27%) were the two standouts. Equity demand cooled despite the strong August with only the US (+10%) and Canada (+17%) seeing growth. EMEA was relatively flat versus 2023 while APAC saw –17%.
Given it is an election year in the US, it’s likely that volatility could increase going into November, so conditions look promising for continued elevated demand driving trade count increases.
Stay tuned for the latest securities finance trends, trading analysis and commentary with Equilend’s Monthly Trading Commentary across 2024.
Subscribe on LinkedIn for monthly updates
Who We Are
Equilend is a global financial technology firm offering Trading, Post-Trade, Data & Analytics, RegTech and Platform Solutions for the securities finance industry. Equilend has offices in North America, EMEA and Asia-Pacific and is regulated in jurisdictions around the globe. The company is Great Place to Work Certified™ in the U.S., UK, Ireland and India and has been honored as European and Americas Data Provider of the Year and Regulatory Solution of the Year in the Securities Finance Times Industry Excellence Awards 2024. www.equilend.com
Mike Norwood
Head of Trading Solutions
michael.norwood@equilend.com
