Average Daily Trading Range Of The Major Forex Pairs

Average Daily Trading Range Of The Major Forex Pairs

It's that time of the month again where I look at the average daily trading range of all the major currency pairs to see which pairs are currently the most volatile, and to see whether volatility in the markets is going up or down in general.

So listed below are the average trading ranges of all of these markets right now in November 2014, based on the latest ATR reading (with October's numbers in brackets):

GBP/USD – 96 (103)
GBP/JPY – 159 (129)
EUR/USD – 86 (86)
EUR/GBP – 43 (41)
EUR/CHF – 14 (21)
USD/JPY – 98 (73)
USD/CAD – 76 (75)
USD/CHF – 66 (63)
AUD/USD – 87 (90)

FTSE 100 – 68 (89)
DOW JONES – 144 (189)
NASDAQ – 43 (56)
S & P 500 – 18 (25)

BRENT CRUDE – 198 (197)
CRUDE OIL – 190 (211)

It's no surprise at all that the Japanese Yen pairs have increased in volatility quite significantly after the Bank of Japan announced a new quantitative easing program at the end of last month in a desperate attempt to kickstart the Japanese economy.

On the whole, though, most pairs have remained pretty much the same as last month in terms of daily volatility, and remain high enough to make a decent return every day because many of the most popular pairs are still trading in quite a wide range on a day to day basis.

The only exception is the EUR/CHF pair which is currently trading is a range of just 14 points every day on average, down from 21 points the month before.

With regards to the other markets, volatility remains high on the oil markets with both Brent Crude and US Crude Oil trading in a range of nearly 200 points every day (with a strong downward bias in general).

Finally, the main stock market indices have fallen in volatility quite a bit since last month, but this is hardly surprising because after a decent rally in recent weeks, there seems to be a lot of indecision and caution at these slightly inflated levels.