Looking back at the most intriguing and popular Forex industry news from the past week between 30th March and 3rd April on LeapRate.
Asian markets continued to tumble, fueled by fears the pandemic was worsening across the pond. Stocks slipped following a statement from President Trump warning that almost 250,000 people in the US could die from Covid-19. One significant milestone on Wednesday was the first bankruptcy among large US shale oil producers, with Whiting Petroleum — which produced 123,000 barrels a day in Q4 2019 — going under in the face of an impending deadline to repay hundreds of millions in outstanding debt. The firm is the first among many likely victims of the oil price war, as the current sub-$30 price of oil is a long way off the breakeven point for most producers.
The current estimates are for the Canadian unemployment to remain unchanged at 5.6%. The unemployment rate has been around the same level since September, and according to ATFX Global Chief Market Strategist, Alejandro Zambrano, it is unlikely that the figure will remain around the same level because of the Coronavirus crisis. On the coronavirus front, the spread of cases in Canada increased by about 20.5% per day from March 21 to March 31 for a total of 8161 cases on March 31. The growth rate is similar to what we have seen in the rest of the world.
China also surprised oil markets with its decision to pile up crude oil stocks following the black gold crash. This had an obvious effect on the barrel price but also a significant impact on energy shares like Total and Eni, which are currently helping the Stoxx-50 Index to offer some resistance against today’s selling pressure.
Saxo Bank Group announced lower profit of DKK 40 million net profit this year, but record number of new clients in its 2019 report.
Retail FX brokerage group Admiral Markets announced that it has expanded its Premium Analytics portal to include featured trading ideas from Trading Central. Traders can now use Admiral Markets’ Premium Analytics portal to stay up-to-date with market news, economic calendars, market sentiment and technical analysis all in a single portal.
Some of UK’s biggest banks have agreed on cutting dividend payments and instead keeping the money for rainy days brought by the coronavirus crisis. The Bank of England (BoE) embraced the decision to stop payments to shareholders and advised other banks to suspend bonuses to senior staff as well.
Tokyo Financial Exchange (TFX) released its trading volumes report for the month of March 2020. The total trading volume of FX Daily Futures contracts (Click 365) was 6,442,605 ( +163.1% MoM / +141.5% YoY ) and its average daily trading volume was 292,845.
Binance is at the finalizing stage of the talks about acquiring crypto data site CoinMarketCap. The global cryptocurrency exchange is looking to pay as much as $400 million for the cash-and-stock deal, potentially making one of the largest acquisitions in the crypto scene.
Jeffrey Siu, ATFX Group COO and Wei Qiang Zhang, ATFX (UK) Managing Director discussed with LeapRate key demands from traders, regulation and new rules, retail, 2020 expectations and more.
The World Federation of Exchanges (WFE) issued a statement warning against the banning of short-selling and claiming it would be damaging to markets. The Federation advises that the measures to ban short-selling are not achieving the desired effect and unlike other circuit breakers and other safeguards put in place to slow markets down, banning short-selling inhibits orderly markets rather than promote them.
Earlier in the week, Tickmill Group, forex and CFD trading provider, announced the appointment of financial services industry veteran with 20 years of experience, Mukid Chowdhury, as Group Chief Financial Officer.
Online trading leader, IG Group, launched its institutional offering this week. IG Prime will provide prime brokerage services for start-up and multi-prime hedge funds and Family Offices.
Group CEO of Global Kapital Group, Tunc Akyurt, discussed with LeapRate the company’s expansion plans for the future. Akyurt talked about the growing interest from financial players towards the retail industry.
