Forex Industry Week Review: FxPro IPO pulled, Odey loses 50%, Israel binary options bill, and lots more… LeapRate

Forex Industry News in the first week of 2017 contained a microcosm of much of the hot topics from 2016 – IPO, binary options regulation, arrests, new licenses, trade disclosure and transparency…

And just like in 2016, you read about it first or exclusively at LeapRate.

An initial look at December FX trading volumes showed fairly strong results, despite the usual end-of-year holiday season slowdown.

Our most popular guest posts of the week included:

Who made money on the US election and who lost? courtesy of Leverate content manager Adinah Brown
The Golden Rule of the Brokerage Industry, Bart Burggraaf, Managing Partner at MediaGroup Worldwide
The History of Binary Options Trading – Infographic, Usman Ahmed at Investoo Group

Some of our most popular, shared and commented-on posts this week at LeapRate included:

FxPro shelves IPO following FCA crackdown. Retail Forex broker FxPro has abandoned plans for a London stock market flotation as a result of the UK regulator’s plan to crack down on the growing financial spread betting market, Sky News has reported. According to Sky News, FxPro has written to a number of prospective non-executive directors lined up for boardroom positions following the IPO to inform them that the company will remain in private hands for now.

Publicly traded forex brokers lose $2.4 billion of market value in 2016. 2016 was not a good year for shareholders of publicly traded Forex and CFD brokers. LeapRate analysis has calculated that more than $2.4 billion was erased from the market value of online trading brokerages during 2016. On average each brokerage lost more than one-third, or 37%, of its market cap over the past year. What were the main causes of the hit? And which brokers were hit hardest?

Odey Asset Management hedge fund loses 50% in 2016. Investment management firm Odey Asset Management, which oversees nearly $8 billion in assets and is the largest shareholder in CFD broker Plus500 Ltd (LON:PLUS), apparently had a disastrous 2016. And that despite a hugely successful £220 million gain correctly calling the Brexit vote. So why did Odey lose all that money, in a year in which hedge funds (and the markets) were generally up? How did Plus500 factor into Odey’s results?

Israel Knesset committee meets in first step to drafting Binary Options legislation. After several months of discussion, a meeting of Israel’s Knesset State Control Committee met yesterday to discuss the issue of unregulated binary options brokers operating from the country. Israel outlawed the marketing or trading of binary options to its own residents earlier this year. However many unlicensed brokers remain based in the country which market to and take clients from abroad. But that may all change soon.