The most important stories of the past week came from all over the online trading world. Among the most positive ones were articles about new partnerships and an upcoming IPO. Unfortunately there were also less positive stories such as the Turkish regulator limiting traders' options, continued Liquidity withdrawal issues and a crash in market capitalization.
FXCM Partners with PFSOFT
On Monday, New York Stock Exchange listed online brokerage, FXCM, unveiled a new partnership that is directly aiming at brokers that use one of the alternatives to MT4. The company will provide access to PFSOFT’s Trading Platform Protrader through the FIX API protocol.
PFSOFT has been developing the solution over the past couple of years, and the new trading platform offering with FXCM liquidity will be delivering price quotes on both CFDs and foreign exchange instruments.
LCG Shares Plunge to New Low
On Tuesday, Shares of London Capital Group Holdings (LON:LCG) hit a new all time low of 7.38 pence per share. This came after the company officially unveiled its new plans for expanding into the retail trading sector and launched its redesigned website and trading platform.
After an initial public offering in 2008, London Capital Group Holdings (LON:LCG) raised £15 million at a placing price of 82 pence per share. The company was valued at the time at £31.4 million. At Tuesday’s price, the value of the company was a little bit less than £6.9 million ($10 million).
CMC Markets IPO
On Wednesday, CMC Markets officially announced its intention to proceed with an IPO. The company will apply for an admission of its ordinary shares to the premium listing segment of the Official List of the FCA and will be trading on the main market of the London Stock Exchange plc.
CMC Markets has a special offer for its clients depending on the amount of shares they are willing to purchase. Customers may purchase from £500 to £20,000 worth of shares depending on the trading costs per month that they paid between the 13th of January 2015 and the 12 of January 2016.
Turkish Watchdog Goes After Small Clients
On Thursday we broke the news that Turkish brokers and market participants were abruptly greeted with a new playing field, with a number of key margin changes implemented to small-cap accounts. Turkey’s Capital Markets Board has mandated a sweeping series of changes to accounts smaller than 20,000 TRY (6,620 USD).
As a result of the new edict, spreads have consequently all been altered across popular trading pairs such as the EURUSD, USDTRY, and EURTRY – along with gold, the maximum leverage will now be set at 50:1. In addition, other currency pairs will have their maximum leverage limited to 25:1.
Fortress Prime Promises
On Friday, we reported that after a number of promises made by the senior management of Fortress Prime, the Dubai based prime clearing unit of Fortress Capital Investments, clients of the company continue to be left empty-handed.
Clients who have been handed checks for the 10th of January are being told that they won’t be able to cash those in. As a result of the unending delays, numerous clients have threatened to file lawsuits against the firm and some of the firm’s biggest customers have made trips to Dubai in order to ascertain the situation first hand.
