It's Time For More Choice in FX Bob Collie Director, Investment Strategy Foreign exchange (FX) markets are big. Average global daily turnover in April 2004 was $1.9 trillion. That is more than 40 times the average daily trading volume of the NYSE. For such a big market, the FX market draws remarkably little attention from institutional investors, however. The way in which FX trades are executed is different from the way in which equity trades or fixed income trades are executed. The vast majority of trades are done away from central exchanges. There are no official market hours and few reliable trading statistics. For the unwary investor, the cost of FX trading can be high. At Russell, we have long regarded foreign exchange as a potential source of slippage¹. In order to quantify the extent of its impact, we have recently conducted a series of execution audits for eight very large institutions. Request this Research A note about our research Our proprietary research is made available to our institutional clients, and many of these published papers are available to other institutional investors as well. If you are not a Russell client, but are an institutional investor, we welcome you to request this research piece. We only require your contact information on a short request form. For more information about our research, please contact Rob or Gerry:   West Coast   East Coast Rob Ciro Director 866-926-5934 Gerry Lillis Director 866-459-4128 ¹ Slippage refers to the shortfall between the theoretical position of a fund and the returns experienced in reality, due, for example, to imperfect implementation. The concept is explored at more length in the 2002 Viewpoint, "Mind the Gap: Effective Policy Implementation." USIRC2925			Related Information Request this Research Learn how you may reduce your foreign exchange costs   Contact Details West Coast contact Rob Ciro Director 866-926-5934 East Coast contact Gerry Lillis Director 866-459-4128 Printer friendly version of this page