Plus 500, one of the biggest CFD brokers regulated by the FCA recently released a statement saying they were going to beat market expectations.
Yes that’s right, little old Plus 500 who was for years nipping at the heals of the industry is now worth over £1bn.
The statement, which somewhat representative of their brokerage services offered nothing other than the bare essentials read:
Plus500, a leading online service provider for retail customers to trade CFDs internationally, is pleased to announce that its business continues to trade strongly. Accordingly, the Board anticipates that revenues and profits for the year ending 31 December 2017 will be ahead of market expectations.
Further details will be announced in the Company’s scheduled third quarter trading update which will be issued on 31 October 2017.
You can see the RNS announcement released by the London Stock Exchange here.
Obviously this got a lot of press with most of the national paper saying that spread betting broker Plus 500 blah blah blah. It really gets my goat, Plus 500 are not a spread betting broker, never have been.
Especially as it’s from big news agencies such as Reuters & City AM, who for some reason are unable to tell the difference between a CFD broker and a spread betting broker. Shame…
Anyway, Plus 500 have out performed the established big boys IG & CMC Markets this year.
Plus 500 share price is up 130%, IG 29% and CMC 45%. Not bad, but particularly good as Plus 500 is the only broker to recover from the FCA’s clamp down on excessive bonuses and leverage. Over 12 months IG is down 28%, CMC Markets 24%, but Plus 500 is up almost 19%.
So why have then remained so popular and resilient to the market conditions?
I don’t know but a few reasons may be the fact that they embrace the new cryptocurrencies and are one of the only brokers to offer trading on Bitcoin, Ethereum, Ripple, NEM, Monero, Litecoin, Dash and Bitcoin Cash.
Richard is the founder of the Good Money Guide (formerly Good Broker Guide), one of the original investment comparison sites established in 2015. With a career spanning two decades as a broker, he brings extensive expertise and knowledge to the financial landscape.
Having worked as a broker at Investors Intelligence and a multi-asset derivatives broker at MF Global (Man Financial), Richard has acquired substantial experience in the industry. His career began as a private client stockbroker at Walker Crips and Phillip Securities (now King and Shaxson), following internships on the NYMEX oil trading floor in New York and London IPE in 2001 and 2000.
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