Key Metrics Updates and Second Quarter Results of FX Brokers

 

Plus500 reports Q2 revenue jump of 68% YoY, US trading platform to launch in H2

 

LeapRate - Plus500 has published its financial metrics for the second quarter of 2022. For the period between April and June, the broker recorded $240.5 million in revenue, making a 68% increase on yearly basis.

 

The EBITDA for Q2 2022 surged 118% to $143.7 million. The EBITDA margin came in at 60% compared to 46% in the second quarter of the previous year.

 

The Israel-headquartered company’s performance in the second quarter of the year is in line with the results with the first quarter when the revenue jumped 68% quarter-over-quarter and 33% compared to the previous year.

 

The numbers resulted in a $511.4 million revenue for the first half of the year, with 48% rise compared to H1 2021.

 

 

Customer activity

During the second quarter of 2022, the London-listed broker onboarded 23,535 new customers. This significantly lower than the 47,574 accounts added in the second quarter of the previous year. The numbers are also down compared to the previous quarter. Plus500 also reported 145,506 active traders on its platform, down from 209,465 last year.

 

Customer income for Q2 2022 stood at $151.8 million and for the H1 2022, it was $339.8 million.

Plus500’s CEO, David Zruia, commented:

Plus500 continued to outperform in the first half of 2022, supported by positive momentum achieved in recent years and by the power of our market-leading proprietary technology.

 

The Group continued to deliver outstanding levels of returns to shareholders during the period, through both recent $60.0m dividend payments and our most recent $105.0m aggregate share buyback.

 

US expansion

In July last year, Plus500 strengthened its presence in US with the acquisition of Cunningham Commodities LLC and Cunningham Trading Systems LLC. The company now announced that it expects its new trading platform for the retail futures market in the US to launch in the second half of the year.

 

Zruia added: We made significant progress in delivering against our strategic priorities, in particular the major growth opportunities in the U.S., where we continue to make substantial investments.

 

 

Saxo Bank Sees Recovery in FX Demand, June Trading Volume Jumps 44% YoY

 

Finance Magnates - Saxo Bank published the trading metrics for June 2022, reporting a monthly decline in overall activities. Total trading volume for the month came in at $398.8 billion, which is 5.4 percent lower than the previous month.

 

Despite the monthly dip, June’s overall trading demand came in significantly higher than the levels in April. It even strengthened by more than 41 percent on a year-over-year basis.

 

Additionally, the demand for forex trading on Saxo’s platform improved marginally last month. The total monthly volume with  forex  instruments came in at $152.5 billion compared to the previous month’s $149.6 billion and June 2021’s $106.1 billion. Thus, forex demand came in 2 percent stronger month-over-month and almost 44 percent on a yearly basis.

 

Moreover, June’s  forex trading  demand on Saxo came in the highest since mid-2020. On top of that, the average daily trading volume touched $6.9 billion.

 

 

Other Markets

However, demand for equities trading declined last month. The total trading volume with equities instruments offered by Saxo stood at $192.1, which is lower than the previous month’s $220.1 billion. Also, this asset class recovered on a yearly basis with the demand gaining almost 52 percent.

 

Furthermore, Saxo offers trading services with commodities and fixed income instruments. While demand for the first declined by 14.7 percent, the second strengthened by 45.7 percent month-over-month.

 

Saxo Bank is headquartered in Denmark but has a significant presence in the Asia-Pacific markets as well. Its focus on the APAC also became prominent with several key hirings over recent months. In May, the company expanded its APAC market strategist team by onboarding Charu Chanana.

 

Apart from Saxo, other retail trading platforms are posting solid growth in volumes. Exness, which is headquartered in Cyprus and has a broad presence in emerging markets, reported $2.25 trillion as the monthly trading volume in June as the number of active clients on the trading platform hit a record.

 

 

Active Clients at Exness Hit Record in June, Trading Volume at $2.25T

 

Finance Magnates - Exness has published its trading metrics for June 2022, reporting a more than 12 percent monthly uptick in its trading volume. In absolute terms, revenue for the month came in at almost $2.25 trillion, making it the second-best month in the retail trading venue’s operational history.

 

The Cyprus-headquartered broker offers trading services with a range of instruments, including forex and contracts for differences (CFDs) of stocks, digital currencies, indices and several other asset classes.

 

The platform made an industry record last March as monthly trading volume almost touched $2.5 trillion. Though the trading demand corrected from the peak, it has stayed strong and above the $2 trillion mark, for four consecutive months.

 

The latest rebound in Exness’ monthly trading volume not only shows the rise in  retail trading  demand, but also the company’s growing popularity in the market. On a year-over-year basis, monthly trading volume on the platform skyrocketed by 161 percent.

 

 

Another Record

Trading volume is not the only parameter where the  trading platform  is making records. Additionally, the number of active clients on the trading platform touched a record in June with 323,216. The figure was more than 6 percent higher than the previous month and even surpassed the previous peak that was achieved in March.

 

Further, the client withdrawals on the retail trading platform peaked last quarter, between April and June. According to the official figures, Exness clients withdrew almost $985 million from the platform in the quarter, compared to $870 million in the previous three months.

 

One of the reasons behind Exness trading volume skyrocketing was the company's focus on emerging markets, especially in Asia. Now, the broker is eyeing the retail trading space in Africa. It received a Kenyan regulatory license earlier this year, while already holding permission from the South African financial market supervisor.

 

 

INTERACTIVE BROKERS REPORTS WEAKEST TRADING VOLUME IN 2 YEARS

 

FinanceFeeds - Despite a multitude of trading incentives that Interactive Brokers LLC (NASDAQ:IBKR) introduced over the past few years, including commission-free trading and fractional shares, monthly volumes are struggling for any real traction.

 

IBKR today reported its lowest DARTs since October 2020, which came in at 2.01 million transactions in June. That compares to 2.29 million daily average revenue trades, or DARTS, in May 2022, down 12 percent on a monthly basis. On a year-on-year scale, the electronic brokerage firm saw an 18 percent increase relative to June 2021’s metrics.

 

A total of 1.92 million customer accounts were active at IBKR during June 2022, up two percent month-on-month, and was also 36 percent higher year-on-year. At this pace, Interactive Brokers is set to cross the two million milestone for the first time in the company’s 44-year history.

 

The data shows that the trend of rising accounts number is still in play, though volumes were interrupted. It is not clear whether that will be enough to support the revenue growth after the listed discount broker reported lower earnings for the three months through March 2021.

 

Ranked as the largest US electronic broker by some measures, Interactive Brokers’ first-quarter adjusted revenues dropped 27 percent year-over-year, to $645 million compared to $893 million in Q1 2021.

 

In terms of margin loans in customers’ accounts during June 2022, the figure totaled $42.6 billion, down by four percent on a monthly basis from May and was also lower by 13 percent relative to the figures of the prior year.

 

 

IBKR had a busy month

The Greenwich, Connecticut-based company also revealed that on average it charged clients commission fees of $2.96 per order. This figure includes exchange, clearing and regulatory fees, with the key product metrics coming out at $2.18 for stocks, $3.98 for equity options and $3.80 for futures orders.

 

Interactive Brokers is among few platforms seeing such sluggish performance this year as most of its publicly traded rivals and retail platforms had doubled trading volume from their 2021 totals.

 

Interactive Brokers had been in the news over the past few weeks. In May, the company rolled out the fractional trading feature for European stocks and ETFs, three years after its initial launch for US securities back in 2019.

 

The move, geared toward attracting more young clients, eliminates the barriers that many investors face when trying to invest in a diversified portfolio of listed securities. Fractional share trading allows investors to diversify their investment portfolios by spreading their relatively small capital over a broader range of stocks.

 

TradingView also integrated the US-listed brokerage firm as the latest online trading partner. Interactive Brokers traders will now have direct access to TradingView from their own accounts, which yields many benefits for users in the form of an integrated trading terminal and other suites of tools. With the soft launch, investors will have the ability to trade futures and stocks, with more asset classes launching soon.