London-based online brokerage ActivTrades announced today that it is on track to post its best-ever half-year results, thanks to an increase in trading volumes and strong growth in the number of clients.
With only a few days to go to the end of the second quarter, the company has recorded £30 million in revenue for the first half of 2020, more than trebling the £8 million registered in the same period last year and already well above the £20.6 million it recorded for the whole of 2019.
This year is poised to be the most profitable ever for the brokerage, with the first half profit expected to be a record £18 million, according to the firm.
"We are very pleased with this performance. We were expecting a strong year but this goes beyond our estimates and bodes well for future growth," said ActivTrades CEO Alex Pusco.
"The return of Volatility globally has helped and we have also seen a strong increase in clients in various regions. At this turbulent time for markets, ActivTrades has benefitted from its reputation as one of the most efficient and trusted online brokerages," he added.
ActivTrades' strong performance came amidst the Covid-19 crisis, which has seen trading volumes climb and sparked a surge in volatility on markets, lifting both top and bottom lines for the brokerage.
New products, more clients
The company said that it also gained from the expansion of its product range and the addition of new clients, many of whom are adopting the new web-based ActivTrader platform.
"These impressive numbers also highlight the success of our new platform ActivTrader, which is easy to use, very innovative and offers fast order Execution . Clients are certainly rewarding us for this upgrade," said Pusco.
ActivTrades has been adding multiple new products to its offering this year. Among them are CFDs on more than 100 new shares around the world and two innovative CFDs tied to the spot price of WTI and Brent.
Unlike traditional CFDs on oil futures, these contracts do not need rolling over to future dates as they do not have an expiry date.
Pusco explained that these products were developed extremely quickly after the unforeseen dive in prices of near-expiry oil futures this spring. The firm wanted to offer its clients an alternative solution to be able to gain exposure to oil prices without having to worry about rolling over their positions.
With CFDs, there are no commissions with the only cost being the bid/ask spread applied by the broker. A swap rate may apply to keep positions open overnight while there are no additional costs for intraday trading, according to ActivTrades.
