Spreadex have announced a number of cuts to some of their forex markets.

Spreads for EUR/USD and AUD/USD markets are now fixed at only 1 point when out-of-hours and spreads for EUR/JPY and GBP/USD markets have been reduced to only 2 points as well as fixed out-of-hours.

The development closely follows Spreadex’s taking over of Cantor Index’s non-equity financial spread betting clients.

In a somewhat surprising development, Cantor Index has announced that it is ceasing its non-single equity financial spread betting offering as of Friday, 15th March, 2013.

The company has entered into a commercial agreement with Spreadex for the latter to acquire the financial spread betting client base of Cantor Index.

This is not the first time that Spreadex has entered such dealings; having previously acquired both the clients lists of now defunct Extrabet and MF Global Spreads.

The deal relates to the non-stock spread betting clients of Cantor who will be transferred to the Spreadex platform on March 20th.  Spreadex has pledged to honour all players’ open positions when accounts are migrated to the Spreadex platform on Wednesday. Clients will be able to access their new Spreadex accounts using their previous Cantor Index username and a new password, which will be emailed to clients before the transfer is effected.

Spreadex’s  managing director Jonathan Hufford was naturally delighted with the move:

‘With 14 years of spread betting experience behind us and having been named number one for customer service for the past two years in the Investment Trends CFD, FX and financial spread betting report, we are confident Cantor Index clients will be very comfortable in their new surroundings.’

Charles Knott, director of Cantor Fitzgerald Europe stated that the sale would permit the company to focus on its equity-related CFD and spread betting offerings.

Britain-based IG, which runs spread-betting brand IG Index has released its Interim Management Statement for the period from 1 December 2012 to 11 March 2013 where it reported that revenues have risen from £75.1m to £88.6m for the third quarter, 18% ahead of the prior year.

IG attributed the jump to improved market conditions which encouraged clients to increase their trading activity, as well as a relatively weak prior year comparative quarter in what was overall quite a strong year. Tim Howkins noted that they are still seeing subdued levels of overall market volatility but with some better day-to-day movements in both foreign exchange and equity markets. ‘We’ve seen Wall Street hitting record highs in the last day or two and over the last couple of months we’ve had something like a 10% rally in the Dow. A rally of this sort of magnitude is clearly encouraging to our clients,’ he added.

The Group’s revenues increased in all of the company’s operating regions, with sharp growth from Europe and the Rest of the World. The average revenue per client increased 14%. In the United Kingdom revenue increased 15% from £39.4m to £45.2m boosted by a 16% rise in average revenue per client while revenue from Europe improved by 22% year-on-year from £14.8m to £18.1m, and revenue per client in the rest of the world increased by 24%. In particular, in Australia revenues increased 10% to £12.3m albeit the company cautioned that weak sentiment still continues to restrict the flow of new clients into the local market. The strongest revenue growth came from Germany and Sweden while South Africa and the USA also reported strong growth. IG stated that active client numbers had increased markedly across all its European divisions. The Company attributed its continued rise in revenues to its constantly improving technology platform and focus on the mobile sector.

IG is encouraged by the increase in client activity levels and believes that its technology lead and strong balance sheet leaves it well placed for continued growth and to take advantage of any short term or more sustained improvements in the markets which it serves but it cautioned that consumer sentiment remains unpredictable. The update should be good news for IG Group, which reduced staff last year following less than stellar results for the 6 months ended 30 November.

Dublin-based financial spread betting provider MarketSpreads has rebranded itself as Shelbourne Markets from today.

The company, whose major shareholders include Merrion Capital stockbroker Enrique Curran and his father Ray intends to broaden its offering beyond spread trading to include foreign exchange trading.

The company has recovered from regulatory difficulties it faced last year and intends to also launch new business-to-business services. Marketing executive John McGlade stated that the company felt it had to re-brand itself to reflect the fact that it is expanding beyond spread trading to a broader range of products.

MarketSpreads’ financial accounts for the 16 months ended April 30th, 2012 show that the company generated revenues of €6.7 million, compared with €3.95 million during the previous reporting period. Operating profits hit €917,000, up from €214,000 in 2010.

London Capital Group, which owns spread betting firm Capital Spreads has announced Tuesday that it has received three separate “preliminary approaches” regarding a possible acquisition of the business. The companies interested are Cantor Fitzgerald Europe, GAIN Capital, and City Index. There is no certainty that these approaches will lead to an offer as these are preliminary approaches.

Exchange takeover regulations stipulate that the three possible suitors have until March 12th to make an offer for London Capital Group. It has also been rumoured that Betfair could also be interested in the group. The deadline can only be extended with the consent of The Takeover Panel.

Editor Note and Update 06th March 2013: The company has terminated discussions without any forthcoming sale. In a statement issued the board of London Capital Group emphasized that it is confident of its future as an independent company under its new chief executive, Mark Slade who is succeeding Simon Denham after his departure.

Spreadex have released a new infographic comparing share spread betting and share trading while also looking at the most successful equity spread betters of 2012.

IG Group which runs spread betting brand IG Index has announced its interim results for the 6 months ended 30 November 2012.

- Net trading revenue down 14% at GBP169.0 million which the company attributed to lower market volatility
- Half-year profit before tax down 21% to GBP81.1 million.
- GBP59.3 million of own funds generated from operations.
- Interim dividend of 5.75p per share, flat on prior year.
- Continued market share growth in three biggest markets.
- Satisfactory results against an extremely strong prior year comparator.

CEO Tim Howkins noted that these were satisfactory results and had to be taken against an extremely strong prior year comparator in particular when taking in consideration that market conditions for much of the year have been difficult for the whole industry with subdued market volatility. The company reported a 14% drop in half-year trading revenues to GBP169.0 and a 21% fall in pre-tax profits to £81.1m which the company blamed were due to “the longest sustained period of low volatility for over five years and trading volumes in underlying markets at multi-year lows”. IG Group emphasied that persisting global econonic uncertainty, fragile consumer sentiment and continuing interventions by the BOE, the USA Federal Reserve and the European Central Bank are damping market movements to newsflow. IG admitted that these market conditions have resulted in lower client trading activity across the board and less speculators are opening accounts. This was spread across IG’s principal divisions, with UK, European and Australian revenues all down between 14% and 15%.

Just a few days ago its UK rival London Capital Group published similarly uninspiring results as well. IG’s trading update is clearly not great but Howkins added that IG continues to invest in IT and marketing and is confident that the future prospects for IG Group over the longer term remain good. Spread betting providers tend to fare best in volatile market conditions. In the medium term the group believes that continued adverse market conditions as opposed to a European financial transaction tax represented the biggest challenge to IG’s future prospects in the medium term. If such trading conditions were to persist Howkins would reasonably expect that revenue growth from IG’s established divisions in the United Kingdom and Australia would remain modest with higher levels of growth from their newer businesses in Europe, South Africa, Singapore and the US. IG remain hugely cash-generative and strongly capitalised with net cash of £108m. The Group also continues to increase market share in a number of countries from where the company operates and has recently opened a small representative office in Dublin, Ireland. Howkins ultimate ambition is to get IG listed in the FTSE 100 index.

London Capital Group Holdings plc released a trading update for the year ending 31 December 2012. The company stated that it has continued to experience subdued trading volumes in the fourth quarter due to low market volatility. The Group achieved GBP28.6m (2011: GBP39.0m) in revenue and the adjusted loss before tax for the year amounted to GBP0.2m. This includes a GBP0.5m charge of exceptional legal costs including Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS) claims and losses from overseas subsidiaries of GBP1.2m. The company stated that it is presently undergoing an efficiency review and will be reviewing the operations of its overseas divisions.

The company has already identified 15% in possible savings that can be achieved by cutting costs and the LCG board intends to implement this cost-cutting exercise by the end of 2013. LCG added that while trading volumes and active clients remain suppressed, client funds on deposit and clients numbers reaming strong, leaving the Group well positioned when market activity increases. The Group is also adequately capitalised with net cash resources and amounts due from brokers amounting to GBP20.3m as at 31 December 2012.

Meanwhile in better news LCG has announced a new white-label venture in partnership with Bet Victor to offer BetVictor clients the ability to trade financial spreads. The website – branded BetVictorFinancials.com was launched earlier this week and will run on LCG’s trading technology. BetVictor has a turnover exceeding £1billion per year and with over 500,000 clients in around 160 different countries. Existing LCG partners include bwin.party (Intertrader), Betfair (Tradefair), TD Direct Investing, Saxo Bank and Selftrade.

IG Index have announced spread cuts on some of their most popular markets as from 16th December. Spreads they’re tightening include:

IG are also tightening their spreads on a number of global forex pairs, and will continue to offer the FTSE 100 at just 1 point. On a less positive note, IG also announced that while they are tightening the spreads on a number of their major markets, the spreads on 5 of their less-traded markets will widen.

London Capital Group (LCG) has launched a new white label trading platform in collaboration with execution-only broker Selftrade, a UK-based subsidiary of European online stockbrokers Boursorama, one of Europe’s leading online stockbrokers and a division of the Société Générale Group.

The new SelftradeMarkets dealing service, which is already open for business, offers financial spread betting and CFDs across a wide range of markets.  London Capital Group CEO Simon Denham stated that they are very enthusiastic about working with Selftrade who are one of the best known stock broking brands in the United Kingdom: ‘I’m confident  that this white label service will compliment their existing services and brand to reap significant rewards for both Selftrade and London Capital Group.

Mark Pearson, chief marketing officer for Selftrade stated that the new service offers an enhanced set of features compared to their previous offering.

Selftrade is the latest company to sign a white label deal with LCG, following the likes of Betfair (Tradefair), bwin.party (InterTrader), Saxo Bank and TD Direct Investing.