A representative part of the members of the Bund Issues Auction Group voluntarily report their trades in Federal securities (Bubills, Schaetze, Bobls, Bunds, green Federal securities and inflation-linked Federal securities) - categorized by type of Federal security traded, by region and by institutional form of the trading partner. Based on trading volumes and net positions, this allows the Finance Agency to identify rough structures of the secondary market trading.

The gross trading volume is derived by adding up the reported sales and purchase volumes of the auction group banks. The net trading volume is the balance of sales minus purchase volumes.

For example, a net position of € -22 bn vis-à-vis brokers corresponds to a € 22 bn higher volume of purchases by auction group members from brokers than sales to brokers. The trading data published here are provisional, as later subsequent submissions may lead to corrections.

Comparison ot Trading Volumes 1st Half-year 2024 vs. 1st Half-year 2023

Trading volume of € 3,635 bn puts the first half of 2024 in third place among the strongest half-years in terms of trading volume. More than € 23 bn more Federal securities were traded than in the same period of the previous year. The outstanding nominal volume of Federal securities (excluding the Federal Government's own holdings) rose proportionally more strongly by 3 % on a half-year basis. Compared to the second half of 2023, the increase in turnover was 21 %.

The main factors behind the significantly stronger trading activities since 2022 seem to be:

• the highest outstanding volume of Federal securities to date
• the significant increase in yields
• the shifts in the holder structure of Federal securities in favour of more interest rate-sensitive and more trading-friendly investors - in particular due to the scaling back of the two ECB purchase programmes that began in 2022

Traditionally, the holiday months in summer lead to lower issuing and trading activity in the second half of the year. Trading volumes in the first half of 2024 are therefore compared below with the half-year data for 2023.

Net Trading Volume

Although the first half of 2024 cannot match the record sales of the bidding banks in the first half of 2023, it ranks fourth in the series of the last eight half-years, which are also the strongest in terms of net sales since statistics began. This ‘list of the best’ can also be seen in the series of strongly correlated issue volumes. With a net trading volume of around € 171 billion, the first half of 2024 is 14% below the record set in the first half of 2023.

In the first half of 2024, Federal notes and green Federal securities once again surpassed their record trading volumes in the middle of the previous year. While trading in Federal notes was only marginally higher, the trading volume of green securities increased by over 40 % - the strongest growth of all Federal securities. An increase in turnover of a good quarter helped 30-year Federal bonds achieve the second-highest trading volume in the statistics - after 2005. The trading volume of 10-year Federal bonds, which also includes turnover in 7- and 15-year original maturities, rose only slightly by 3 %. Despite the new maturities added in 2020, the share of Federal securities with original maturities of 7 to 15 years in the trading volume of all Federal securities fell to the lowest level in the statistics as early as the second half of 2022. The relative trading level remained at this level of just over 40 % until mid-2024. Federal Treasury notes and Treasury discount paper fell just under 10 % short of their turnover records in the first half of 2023. Trading in inflation-linked Federal securities fell 40 % short of the previous year's level - the lowest figure since the first half of 2009.

There was almost no change in the ranking of net sales of the different types of Federal securities compared to the first half of the year: the highest net sales were of Treasury discount paper totalling € 72 bn. Ten-year Federal bonds followed at a considerable distance at a level of just under € 33 bn, Federal Treasury notes at € 26 bn and Federal notes at € 22 bn. Net sales of € 12 bn were no longer enough for the 30-year Federal bonds to set new records, as was the case a year ago, but were still the third-highest level in these statistics. Net sales of green Federal securities set a new record of more than € 5 bn, after a year earlier, on balance, only slightly more green securities were bought by the banks of the bidding group than were sold by them to others. Despite the cessation of issues at the end of 2023, net sales of inflation- linked Federal securities continue to be reported. The balance results exclusively from transactions on the secondary market. At less than € 1 bn, it was one of the lowest in the time series in the first half of 2024.

In terms of counterparties, hedge funds have firmly established themselves as the fourth most important trading partner since the first half of 2022, ahead of central banks. In the first half of 2024, they traded more Federal securities than ever before, totalling around € 551 bn. Like insurance companies and central banks, they increased their turnover by between 12 and 14 % compared to the first half of 2023. The highest growth in trading of around 50 % was achieved by other investors, which include private investors as well as non-financial companies. Banks turned over a 7 % higher volume. Brokers traded almost exactly the same volume. Asset managers fell 12 % short of their best figure from the previous year, while pension funds traded at a more average level of around 17 %.

The highest percentage increases in net purchases in the same period came from pension funds and insurance companies, which acquired € 12 bn and almost € 5 bn respectively - in each case over 60 % more Federal securities than a year ago and the third-highest volume in the statistics. Net purchases by hedge funds were at a similar level of € 14 bn. However, this level represents a decrease of 70 % compared to the exceptional record level of the first half of 2023. Asset managers and banks made very similar net purchases of € 38 bn and € 35 bn respectively. In the same period of the previous year, they also showed by far the strongest buying activity in the statistics and are now 45 % and 21 % below their record levels respectively. By contrast, the central banks, which had their four strongest half-years ever from the second half of 2020 to the first half of 2022, saw an increase in net purchases. An increase of 15 % to € 95 bn compared to the first half of 2023 helped them to the fifth best half-year in the statistics. Their lead over asset managers, hedge funds and banks as the most important buyers of Federal securities, which had recently dwindled noticeably, has been restored for the time being.