The supplier of the Plus500 derivatives trading platform registered a 284% increase in revenues in the first quarter of this year compared to the previous year, largely due to the high levels of interest in its cryptocurrency CFD offers .
On Tuesday, the CFD Plus500 market provider released its quarterly earnings for the three months ended March 31. "Revenues for the first quarter of 2018 were $ 297.3 million, an increase of 284% compared to the same period last year," the company said, adding:
"The strong start to the year resulted from a period of relatively volatile markets and high levels of interest in the company's offering of cryptocurrency CFDs, and in turn encouraged high levels of new customer registrations and record operations in Q1 2018."
In addition, earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization increased by 418% to $ 237.3 million.
Plus500 operates an online trading platform for individual customers to exchange CFDs. Customers can market them in more than 50 countries, with more than 2,200 different global underlying financial instruments that include stocks, indices, commodities, options, exchange traded funds (ETF), cryptocurrencies and currencies.
Incorporated in Israel with subsidiaries in the United Kingdom, Cyprus, Australia and Singapore, the company is also licensed in New Zealand and South Africa. It offers cryptocurrency operations of up to 1:20 of leverage. "You can start with only $ 100.00 to get the effect of $ 2,000 capital," announces Plus500 on its website. With a commission of 0%, the company "is compensated mainly for its services through the supply / demand differential".
While seeing strong growth in January, Plus500 revealed:
"Since then, we have seen market conditions return to more normal levels in the last two months. As such, we do not expect such exceptional performance to repeat itself for the rest of the year. "
Other companies offering CFD cryptocurrencies include IG, IQ Option, Intertrader, Pepperstone, Cityindex, Gkfx and Xtb. IG, which claims to be the number one provider of CFDs and spread bets around the world, offers bitcoin, bitcoin cash, bitcoin gold, ether, ripple and litecoin CDFs.
In November, the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) of the United Kingdom issued a warning on CFDs for retail investors. CFDs, "including financial spread bets, with cryptocurrencies such as the underlying investment, are increasingly being marketed to consumers. These products are high risk speculative products, "warned the authority.