Twitter now being valued at between $17-$18 billion, well above the $11 billion figure when the Twitter IPO was announced.

Quick update on one of the more interesting stories we’ve been covering lately, that of Twitter’s upcoming IPO. As we wrote earlier, some enterprising forex brokers in the UK — namely ETX Capital and IG.com — are letting their clients trade Twitter shares well in advance of Twitter’s actual IPO, expected in the coming weeks.

How does that work? Greymarket trading. Specifically, ETX and IG clients can take positions on the overall market capitalization Twitter will actually have when it completes its IPO.

We understand from certain industry insiders that:

• Volumes in Twitter trading began slow, but has picked up in the past week, mainly because….
• …. Twitter’s (expected) valuation has moved up in the greymarket, from about $11 billion when trading began three weeks ago to between $17-18 billion now. Nothing like a CFD moving up rapidly to attract the attention of traders.
• The ‘real volumes’ are expected to come once Twitter sets an actual target pricing date and goes on an investor roadshow.

We’re somewhat surprised that more brokers haven’t yet launched similar trading in Twitter, which as one might imagine carries a lot of name recognition among retail forex traders. Similarly, when Facebook first went public a number of forex brokers ran “Trade Facebook shares” ad campaigns, which generally did well and attracted a new type of trader.

To see the complete Twitter IPO prospectus (technically an S-1 filing with the SEC) click here. 

For more on the global Forex industry see the LeapRate-Dow Jones Forex Industry Report.