Looking back at the most intriguing and popular industry news from the past week between 4th and 8th May on LeapRate.
Online trading leader, IG Group, announced that Charlie Rozes will join the company on 1 June 2020 as an Executive Director and Chief Financial Officer. The new appointment follows January’s announcement of Paul Mainwaring’s intention to retire.
TechFinancial, announced it is terminating all its B2B brokerage services activities. The company attributed its decision to the continuing regulatory challenges facing traditional brokerage solutions business unit and the drop in corresponding revenues. The fintech provider give its licensees a six months termination notice as per the license agreement in place. All B2B brokerage services activities will be ceased by 1 November 2020 or earlier if the licensees choose to terminate before that time.
FXSpotStream released its volume report for April, reporting a decrease in ADV last month, following March’s all-time high. FXSpotStream’s Q1 2020 ADV was USD49.121 billion, a 33% increase when compared to the same period in Q1 2019.
The American economy had recorded a sharp, yet expected, loss in job numbers in March report, as the report witnessed a loss of about 701,000 jobs in March, a figure that we expect to be revised in April’s report showing worst figures than the forecast. The reading in March was much worse than the average market expectation for the US labour market with a loss of around 100,000 jobs.
ASIC reported an increase in retail activity across the securities market during the Covid-19 period. The Commission’s market analysis shows the turbulent environment of the market increases the risk of loses, especially for retail investors. ASIC has found that some retail investors engage in short term trading strategies unsuccessfully attempting to time price trends.
When choosing a platform for cryptocurrency exchange, many experienced and budding traders tend to immediately settle for whichever option they encounter first. That, however, rarely proves to be the best choice. Exchanges of cryptocurrencies have gone through some sort of revolution in the past decade. Numerous new exchange platforms have been launched with unique features that even the major players in the industry find difficult to rival. But you should consider different cryptocurrency exchanges before making a decision.
The euro continues to lose ground to other major currencies during early Wednesday trading in Europe. As investors process the full implications the ruling by the German Supreme Court, which effectively blocks the Bundesbank from participating in the ECB’s public sector purchase program, the single currency hit its lowest level in more than 3 years versus the safe haven Japanese yen. The German court’s decision is like a bucket of cold water thrown over those that expected greater cohesion and solidarity between the various member countries of the single currency to try and overcome the tough challenges ahead.
Stocks have continued to inch higher as Chinese export data comes in much better than expected. European markets are firmer a few tenths either side of 1% and their US counterparts up a little more with the Nasdaq breaking back through the 9000 mark and into positive territory for the year. Markets had been expecting Beijing to announce a 15.1% fall in exports, to add to the miserable economic data that has seemed to trickle through during the pandemic, but we got a surprise when the figure actually came out with a 3.5% gain year on year.
The pound gained ground against both the dollar and the euro following the Bank of England’s decision to keep interest rates and asset purchases unchanged. Until today sterling had been on a losing streak this week in the face of multiple headwinds, including bleak economic prospects and growing unease regarding the way the coronavirus crisis has been handled by the government.
