InstitutionalFX trading volumes pulled back across major venues in April, with mostplatforms giving up a meaningful share of the gains they had posted a monthearlier, as a US-Iran ceasefire and a softer dollar tone cooled the safe-havenactivity that had powered first-quarter readings.Singapore Summit: Meet the largestAPAC brokers you know (and those you still don't!)FXSpotStream April ADVFalls to $142.3 BillionFXSpotStream,the multibank liquidity aggregation service, reported total average dailyvolume (ADV) of $142.3 billion for April, down roughly 18% from the $173.60 billion peak it set in March. Spot ADV came in at $100 billion,with the "other products" category contributing $42 billion.Theplatform still tracked above its year-ago readings. FXSpotStream had reported$122 billion in ADV for April 2025, putting this April roughly 17% higheryear-over-year, even after the monthly slide.Cboe FX Surrenders Most ofMarch GainCboe's spotFX platform processed total volumes of $1.18 trillion across 22 trading days,with ADV of $53.85 billion. That sits well below March's $74.47 billion dailyprint, a reading the company at the timedescribed as a record on the back of a 43% year-on-year jump.The Aprilnumber is also lower than the same month a year earlier, when Cboe's dailyaverage reached $61.9 billion as Trump's "Liberation Day" tariffannouncement on April 2, 2025 set off a heavy round of dollar selling andpulled traders into the venue.The retreatlands at a notable moment for the exchange. Cboe Global Markets reportedfirst-quarter earnings on May 1, with revenue up 29% year-on-year to $728.9 million on the back ofderivatives, equities and FX activity, even as it confirmed plans to cutheadcount by about 20%.April 2026 InstitutionalFX Volumes at a GlanceIran Ceasefire UnwindsSafe-Haven Dollar BidApril'scalmer FX backdrop traces back to a US-Iran two-week ceasefire announcedon April 8, whichtriggered a sharp reversal in the dollar and oil. Brent crude fell below $100 abarrel for the first time since the conflict began in late February, removingthe inflation pressure that had been propping up the safe-haven bid.That setupwas a near mirror image of March, when escalating Middle East tensions, aroughly 3% Bloomberg Dollar Index gain and oil pushing toward $120 hadchanneled flow into spot FX venues. With thegeopolitical risk premium fading through much of April, traders had less reasonto reposition aggressively.Thecontrast with April 2025 also runs the other way. A year ago, Trump's tariffrollout on April 2 had driven record activity acrossboth retail brokers and institutional platforms, with FXSpotStream notching a 33% year-on-yearrise and Cboe its strongest April on record at the time.360T and Euronext FX Slideas Calendar Holds SteadyDeutscheBörse's 360T processed total volumes of $858 billion in April with ADV of $39billion, down from $48.93 billion in March. The Aprilfigure is essentially flat against the $39.58 billion the platform reported inApril 2025, a notable softening given how much the broader institutional FXbackdrop has improved over the past year.Euronext FXtook a sharper hit. The platform recorded total volumes of $646.2 billion withADV of $28.1 billion, down nearly 30% from March's $39.71 billion and roughly24% below the $37.21 billion daily average it posted in April 2025. The gap with 360T, which had narrowed to $9 billionper session in March, widened back to about $11 billion in April.Bothplatforms ran across the same 22 trading days as Cboe and FXSpotStream, so thecalendar offers no easy explanation for the slide.Tokyo Yen Pairs Buck theTrend on Turkish Lira SurgeThe TokyoFinancial Exchange's Click 365 platform was the lone outlier. The venuereported 1,999,422 contracts traded in April, up 0.8% from March, with ADV of90,885 contracts. Year-on-year,however, the platform was still down 11.8%, reflecting tough April 2025comparables when USD/JPY trading surged 61.6% month-on-month on tariff-drivenyen volatility.Thestandout story sits in the exotic crosses. Turkish lira to yen volume reached612,981 contracts, up 28.5% from March and a striking 220.4% year-on-year,putting it ahead of USD/JPY as the platform's most actively traded pair. USD/JPYitself came in at 501,430 contracts, up 4.2% month-on-month but down 41.9% froma year earlier.This article was written by Damian Chmiel at www.financemagnates.com.