A Bloomberg article shows that London, the world’s biggest center for currency trading, increased its lead over New York as in the six months through October 2006. Trading ran at $1.06 trillion a day in London during October, up 6 percent from April. Meanwhile New York shrank 7.5 percent to $534 billion in the same period, based on Bank of England and Federal Reserve surveys. “London has always been the centre of foreign-exchange,” said Ian Stannard, a currency strategist in London at BNP Paribas SA. “It’s continuing to grow and extend that lead.“
A growing share of the city’s volume is from currencies other than the euro and dollar as eastern Europe economies expand and investors take advantage of Japan’s low interest rates to sell yen and seek higher yields elsewhere.
