In  his post The CFTC Killed SEF Trading (for now) Kevin McPartland observes a severe drop in CDS SEF trading volumes which he attributes to the delayed go live on November 1st of CFTC restrictions on SEF documentation and pre-trade credit checks.

Looking at the ClarusFT stats for SEF trading week 5 bears out the point about CDS.  There is also a Nov 1 reduction for IRS and FX SEF trading but less pronounced and less clear whether this is just a Friday lull or a trend.   Perhaps this is partly because D2D SEF volumes for these products are more significant and dealers and D2D SEFs have their aspects of SEF documentation and pre-trade credit checks in place one way or another.  I can imagine a greater proportion of clients or even C2D SEFs may not be ready yet on these points.

It will be interesting to see the numbers after another week to see more sustained evidence of the nature of this lull and how temporary it is.

Jon