The London Metal Exchange's average daily volume (ADV) was little changed for January 2018 when compared with the previous year, but only when you take into account trading changes due to the Markets in Financial Instruments Directive (MiFID) II.
The headline ADV figure for January 2018 is 712,722 lots per day, which appears to be a huge increase on face value compared with 619,524 lots in January 2017. But the LME has now additionally provided a breakdown of ADV to exclude UNA (unallocated) trades from its volumes. Without UNA trades, the average daily volume for January is 622,560 lots - little changed year on year. "The headline numbers look exciting, but the story is more of continued reasonable stable volumes. We do not see the 712,722 lots as a huge jump because it is driven by this new feature of the market - UNA trades, and that is why we are breaking things down to be...