Forex Weekly Look Back: CMC Markets net operating income up 126% YoY in H1, B2Broker launches B2Margin

Looking back at the most intriguing and popular industry news from the past week between 16th and 20th November on LeapRate.

Global institutional investment network Liquidnet today announced the appointment of Steven Nichols as Head of NLP (National Language Processing) and Unstructured Data. The company also announced expanding its data science team with the addition of three data scientists – Nicholas Burtch, Anthony Schramm and Yusong Liu.

At a Frankfurt Stock Exchange at meeting held yesterday, Paul Hilgers was appointed as a member of the Management Board by the Exchange Council. Paul Hilgers has been Head of Cash Market at Deutsche Börse since the beginning of September. He has extensive capital market experience of almost 30 years.

The global provider of online trading CMC Markets Plc released interim results for the first half of the financial year 2021, ending 30 September 2020. The group registered record trading performance for the first half of 2020, with net operating income up by 126% YoY to £230.9 million, compared to same period last year when it was £102.3 million). CMC Markets gained momentum in 2020 and continued its streak. The heightened volatility in the markets was a contributing factor, largely stemming from the Covid-19 pandemic which increased trading activity.

B2Broker, a liquidity and technology provider of solutions to the Forex and crypto industry, has just announced the launch of B2Margin, a white label margin exchange trading platform. Margin trading has been present in Forex markets for a long time and is now popular in the fast-moving crypto sphere. The large exchanges have now also implemented leveraged trading thanks to its high profit-potential which is not achievable with spot trading these days.

Derivatives marketplace CME Group announced launching a suite of new implied volatility benchmark indexes using the methodology from CME Group Volatility Index (CVOL). The company started with eight implied volatility indexes on its 10-Year Treasury Note futures and G5 FX currency pair futures. The CVOL suite of indexes will be expanded to include benchmarks across all major asset classes in the first half of 2021.

Australia-based online FX and CFD broker Pepperstone has continued its global expansion in 2020 with obtaining CySEC licence and securing certainty for European clients after Brexit. Head of Cyprus at Pepperstone, Victor Zachariades, confirmed that the Cypriot regulator has officially granted the broker a CySEC licence.

Global online trading platform IG Group announced the appointment of John Fei as its new CEO, Greater China, to further develop its business in Mainland China, Hong Kong and Taiwan as part of its continued investment for growth. Over the last year, IG has strengthened its presence in the Asia region with recruitment of key people with strong local networks and expertise in working with banks, stockbrokers and hedge funds in order to build a more sustainable, diversified and global business.

CLS, the market infrastructure provider of risk mitigation services to the global FX market, has released its operating metrics for October 2020. The average daily traded volume submitted to CLS was USD 1.707 trillion, down by 4.4% from USD1.785 trillion in September 2020.

FX and CFD online trading venue Skilling today announced that Antonia Zeniou Droussiotou has joined as Global Head of Brand. Droussiotou will join the Skilling senior leadership team and will report to Pavel Spirin, Chief Commercial Officer. This news comes as Skilling continues it’s fast-growth in the trading and fintech field while focusing on brand engagement and improving the platform’s customer-centric experience. Earlier this year, Skilling Group announced its plans to open a London office in October 2020.

Online broker offering CFD and forex trading services ActivTrades plc UK has been selected as one of two options for professional clients of failed wealth management firm SVS Securities, to transfer their funds to. Joint Special Administrator of SVS Securities plc, Leonard Curtis’ announcement allows clients who held Elective Professional Client (EPC) status with SVS to open an account with either ActivTrades or ITI Capital. In August last year, SVS Securities was placed in Special Administration after the FCA identified serious concerns about the way the business was operating.

Gate.io has listed more than 45 DeFi projects in the past three months. The global digital asset exchange continues to list DeFi projects for over 3 million Gate.io users worldwide. Based on the recent reported volumes, some of the best performing tokens on Gate.io include UNI, AMPL, YFI, CRV, with more 2 million (combined) trading volume. The exchange informed that the data on DeFi coins is displayed under the “DeFi” section of the website.

Forex Weekly Look Back

Eventus Systems, Inc., global provider of multi-asset class trade surveillance and market risk solutions, today announced that G.H. Financials (GHF) has chosen Eventus to meet its trade surveillance needs worldwide. In the beginning of early 2021 the London-based exchange-traded derivatives clearing firm will deploy the cloud-based version of the Eventus Validus platform.

European shares have followed Wall Street into the red on Thursday morning as a worrying rise in Covid cases sees jittery investors sell off stocks. Hot off the heels of the positive news that Pfizer’s vaccine was up to 95% efficacy, the US death count hitting the milestone 250,000 mark caused markets to slide. This shows how delicately poised markets are and that news of a vaccine is not sufficient, approval and vaccinations being rolled out is what will make the real difference.

The Russian market operator Moscow Exchange Group (MOEX) announced new Algorithmic trading service of the FX market will be released in November 2020. With the new service, MOEX provides trading members and their clients with TWAP (Time-weighted Average Price) algorithm, that allows to buy or sell evenly the specified volume during the specified time interval.

Compliance technology and data analytics firm SteelEye has been chosen by authorised Financial Services Provider, SCM DMA (Pty) Ltd. DMA is regulated by the Financial Sector Conduct Authority in South Africa and provides multi-asset execution, prime brokerage, trading technology and portfolio management solutions to institutional clients and their end customers.

Read Also: