Bybit xStocks Dual Asset, the exchange’s structured yield product built on tokenised equities, has expanded from six to ten underlying assets after Bybit added pairs linked to Meta, Tesla, Robinhood and Circle. The additions follow existing coverage of SpaceX, Nvidia, Apple, Alphabet, Coinbase and Amazon. How the Bybit xStocks Dual Asset Product Actually Works Dual Asset is a non-principal-protected investment product (meaning your starting capital is not guaranteed back). Users pick an asset pair, a target price and an investment period, then lock in an expected fixed return. According to a Bybit announcement dated 23 July 2026, available periods run…
Author: Publishing Wizard
Investors watching digital asset firms push into traditional finance learned in August 2026 that Wintermute’s SEC broker-dealer registration has gone live, with its US subsidiary, Wintermute USA LLC, now formally registered with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and admitted as a member of the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA). The New York-based subsidiary focuses exclusively on proprietary trading and exchange-traded product services. Its registration covers traditional equities, equity options, and exchange-traded products (ETPs), and allows the firm to self-clear digital asset securities transactions for its own account. What Wintermute SEC Broker-Dealer Status Actually Allows The scope of the registration…
CME Group E-nano futures are set to launch on 24 August, pending regulatory review, offering retail and institutional investors a new route into S&P 500, Nasdaq-100, Russell 2000 and Dow Jones Industrial Average exposure at one-tenth the size of the existing Micro E-mini contracts. Whether they pull active traders away from contracts for difference (CFDs, instruments where a broker is the client’s direct counterparty and no exchange access is needed) is a more open question than the headline sizing cut suggests. What CME E-Nano Futures Actually Cost Each E-nano contract is one-hundredth the size of an E-mini and one-tenth the…
The dollar NFP outlook is the dominant question for currency markets this week, with the greenback having lost ground against most major peers as traders scaled back expectations for two Federal Reserve (the Fed, the US central bank) rate rises before year-end. Friday’s non-farm payrolls (NFP) report (which measures how many jobs the US economy added outside the farming sector) will either reinforce that retreat or push the dollar back. Geopolitics added an extra layer earlier this week. News that Iran and Oman had agreed to establish a shipping corridor through the Strait of Hormuz weighed on oil prices and…
CFD payments testing in Australia has quietly become one of the more instructive experiments in global fintech, as platforms including Pepperstone and Trade Nation use the country’s real-time payments infrastructure to validate new funding experiences before rolling them out worldwide. Why CFD Payments Testing in Australia Makes Commercial Sense The logic starts with scale. Australia has a population of roughly 28 million, comparable in demographics to many larger Western economies but small enough to limit the cost of a misfire. Firms can run live experiments, observe real customer behaviour, and refine the product before committing to European or North American…
Tradeweb credit derivatives ADV (average daily volume, the mean value of contracts traded on each working day) more than doubled year-on-year in July, pushing derivative activity ahead of cash credit within the platform’s credit segment.Credit derivatives ADV reached $21.1 billion in July, up 101.2% from $10.5 billion in the same month a year earlier. Cash credit ADV, at $18.9 billion, grew a comparatively modest 6.6% from $17.8 billion in July 2025. That gap made derivatives the larger slice of a total credit ADV figure that came to $40 billion for the month, up 41.7% year-on-year.What Drove the CDS SurgeCredit default…
XM GOLD24-7 weekend trading is now live, giving retail clients the ability to buy and sell gold as a contract for difference (CFD) on Saturdays and Sundays when the underlying spot and futures markets are closed. The launch makes XM one of a growing cluster of retail brokers that have moved to fill the roughly 48-hour gap between Friday’s market close and Monday’s reopening. What XM GOLD24-7 Weekend Trading Actually Offers A CFD (a contract that tracks the price of an asset without the trader owning it directly) on gold has, until recently, only been available during standard exchange hours.…
Revolut Lithuania cross-border clients surged from 557 in 2022 to more than 2.5 million by the end of 2023, turning a small Baltic jurisdiction into the second-largest source of cross-border retail investment clients in the entire EU and EEA, according to data published by the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA). ESMA does not name the firm responsible. But the profile it describes, a single Lithuanian-registered company that accounts for virtually the country’s entire cross-border retail client base, maps closely to Revolut Securities Europe UAB, the group’s Vilnius-based investment entity. How a Single Migration Created Revolut Lithuania Cross-Border Clients at…
Coinbase UK stock trading launched today, giving eligible users access to close to 4,000 US equities directly inside the app they already use for crypto and cash holdings. Trades start from as little as £1, carry no commission, and support fractional shares, meaning you can buy a slice of a stock rather than a full share. The exchange said access will roll out progressively to all UK users. Funding can come from either GBP or USDC (a dollar-pegged stablecoin), and Coinbase confirmed that existing stablecoin balances can be used directly for stock purchases without first converting to cash. What Coinbase…
Leverate Capital Markets Belarus is withdrawing from the country’s regulated forex market, but the exit is incomplete: the firm’s membership of ARFIN, the Belarusian forex industry association, has ended, yet its licence with the National Bank of the Republic of Belarus remains formally active. ARFIN confirmed in a release that Leverate Capital Markets, operator of the FXPN brokerage brand, had withdrawn from the association following the wind-down of its business in Belarus. The association noted that the firm had taken part in work to develop the regulated over-the-counter market during its membership. Leverate Capital Markets Belarus Licence Remains Active As…
Investors holding Revolut shares through secondary markets learned this week that the fintech is in discussions about a Storonsky $500 billion award scheme, a new staged incentive package for chief executive Nik Storonsky that would only begin paying out once the company’s valuation clears $500 billion, the Financial Times reported. No agreement has been reached. For context on the distance involved: Revolut’s most recent secondary round values the company at $115 billion, less than a quarter of the proposed new ceiling. How the Storonsky $500 Billion Award Would Work The proposed scheme follows the same architecture as Storonsky’s existing package.…
Investors holding eToro shares or watching the platform’s growth story learned this week that the eToro Pierre Gasly partnership extends the company’s Formula One presence beyond team-level branding to an individual driver deal, deepening its bet on motorsport as a customer acquisition channel. eToro Pierre Gasly Partnership Builds on Alpine Deal The new agreement pairs eToro with BWT Alpine Formula One Team driver Pierre Gasly for the 2026 season. Under its terms, Gasly will appear at live events, produce social media content, join podcast recordings and take part in other digital activities aimed at eToro’s global user community. The foundation…
Investors watching the health of the London Stock Exchange (LSE) got concrete news on 5 August 2026: the FCA IPO listing rules have been formally rewritten, with the changes taking effect immediately under Policy Statement PS26/16. The headline change removes the seven-day waiting period that previously had to elapse before connected research (analysis produced by banks or brokers working on the float) could be published. A simpler one-day alternative existed under the old rules, but it required unconnected analysts to be given the opportunity to join issuer communications, which most companies avoided for fear of creating information-parity obligations. In practice,…
The Tomorrow impact fund reopens to new buyers this week, ending a purchasing lockout that stretched well beyond the company’s original autumn 2024 promise. Customers of the Hamburg sustainable banking app can once again open a securities account and buy into the fund, nearly two years after the buying function was suspended. The Tomorrow Fund (ISIN: DE000A2QK5D4) held €15.41 million in assets at the end of December 2025, according to fund data published by Das Investment. That figure tells only part of the story: data from the Universal Investment fund finder puts the fund’s volume at approximately €10.5 million as…
Investors watching Polymarket’s rapid ascent learned this week that the prediction market platform is in early-stage talks for a new funding round that could set its Polymarket $20 billion valuation, according to Bloomberg, citing people familiar with the matter. The round could bring in roughly $1 billion. Polymarket declined to comment. The talks follow a sequence of capital raises that has taken the company from an $8 billion valuation in October 2025 to a closed $15 billion round in April 2026, and now to a figure well above that. How the April Round Actually Came Together The April 2026 round…
Investors watching the boundary between financial markets and sport learned on 29 July 2026 that NHL sports index futures have moved a step closer to reality, with the National Hockey League signing an exclusive data agreement with index provider FutureSports to supply the official real-time statistics that will underpin the contracts. CME Group plans to list monthly and quarterly cash-settled futures contracts on FutureSports Performance Indexes (FSPI). Cash-settled means no physical delivery: at expiry, the contract simply pays out the difference between the entry price and the final index value in cash. According to CME Group’s press release dated 29…
eToro investor relations confirmed on 4 August 2026 that the trading platform is launching an eToro payroll-linked investing service in partnership with workforce payments company Papaya Global, aiming to put investment accounts in front of employees the instant their salaries land. The service, called eToro Work, sits on top of Papaya Global’s Banco payments platform and connects payroll infrastructure directly to eToro’s trading and investing tools. The companies say it is also intended to deliver financial education alongside the investment access. What eToro’s Payroll-Linked Investing Service Actually Does The basic idea is straightforward: rather than waiting for a worker to…
CMC Markets Brent crude trades by Australian clients jumped 1,193% in March 2026 compared with February, according to a behavioural report the broker published this week, titled Inside the Mind of the Trader. The figure captures just how sharply retail traders pivoted when US and Israeli strikes on Iran effectively closed the Strait of Hormuz. CMC Markets Brent Crude Trades and the Hormuz Shock Brent opened on 2 March at $82, a 14-month high and a 13% jump, and later topped $115. CMC presents the 1,193% rise in trade counts as evidence of how quickly clients redirect attention when a…
Firms subject to FCA transaction reporting rules learned this week that their collective annual compliance bill will fall by £108 million, dropping from £493 million to roughly £385 million once the changes take effect on 3 April 2028. The catch: contracts for difference (CFDs) and spread bets, two products widely used in retail investing, remain fully in scope. What the FCA Transaction Reporting Rules Actually Change The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has finalised a package of reforms to the UK’s MiFIR transaction-reporting regime, MiFIR being the rulebook that requires investment firms to file detailed records of every trade with the…
Investors watching the prop trading sector learned this month that two firm executives are willing to criticise prop trading consistency rules in the industry, but only up to a point: both defended the versions their own companies use. Adam Bock, Head of Eightcap Challenges, named profit consistency as the rule he would remove from the broader industry. Archie Cade, Founder and Director of TTTMarkets, separately criticised some competitor versions while defending his firm’s own approach. Both spoke in July interviews published by ResponsibleTrading.com. What Prop Trading Consistency Rules Actually Do A consistency rule, in prop trading, caps how much of…
The Moneta Markets UAE licence granted to its local entity, Moneta Global Financial Services LLC, has given the retail broker its first directly regulated foothold in the Emirates, after the UAE Capital Market Authority (CMA) approved a Category 5 licence for the firm. The CMA, which supervises nearly 250 licensed financial institutions and operates a publicly searchable Licensed Companies Registry, issued the approval to Moneta Markets’ UAE entity. The category of licence matters here: a Category 5 authorisation covers arrangement and advice activities, meaning marketing, promotion, financial consultation, and client introduction. It is not a full brokerage licence permitting the…
The CME E-nano futures launch, announced on 3 August 2026, will add the smallest tier yet to the exchange’s equity index line-up, with trading set to begin on 24 August, pending regulatory review. The contracts cover the S&P 500, Nasdaq-100, Russell 2000 and Dow Jones Industrial Average. For retail investors watching index levels climb, the new size tier directly addresses a problem that rising markets create: even when a contract’s multiplier stays the same, the cash exposure attached to each position grows as the underlying index rises. CME said record equity-market levels had increased the barrier to entry for retail…
Investors holding Bitcoin (BTC) learned on 3 August that the Bitcoin $58,000 support level has become the single most consequential number on the chart, with BTC trading near $62,790 at 10:03 UTC after a decline of just over 1%. Monday’s move itself is not a signal. What matters is the structure behind it. Since the sharp selloff across late May and June, BTC has spent weeks rotating inside a broad consolidation band. Resistance sits near $67,044. The floor sits near $58,097. Between those two levels, very little has resolved. Why Bitcoin’s $58,000 Support Is the Only Level That Matters Price…
The Finance Magnates Awards 2026 nomination process opens a path for brokers, prop firms, fintech businesses and their leaders to compete for industry recognition, but the route has more steps than a single online form. Understanding the sequence matters, because the CEO of the Year entry is gated: a company must first secure an official brand nomination before its chief executive can be put forward. How the Finance Magnates Awards 2026 Nomination Process Works The process runs across four stages. Nominations opened on 16 March 2026 and the brand and CEO nomination deadline falls on 11 September 2026. Public voting…
The IG Group Underdog acquisition dominated broker news this week, with the London-listed trading group agreeing to pay up to approximately $1.3 billion for US prediction markets and fantasy sports platform Underdog. The deal reshapes IG’s long-term strategy and handed shareholders a sharp lesson in how markets read bold acquisitions. What the IG Group Underdog Acquisition Means for Holders The transaction is structured as roughly $1.1 billion in upfront consideration plus an earnout of up to $200 million, the latter conditional on Underdog hitting a positive EBITDA in 2026 and tied to its net gaming revenue for that year. According…
Trading platform entry products are doing a different job from the revenue lines that actually fund five of the industry’s biggest brokers and exchanges. The latest half-year and quarterly disclosures confirm that trading platform entry products serve mainly as acquisition tools: platforms use simpler or more topical products to bring clients in, then rely on CFDs (contracts for difference, a form of leveraged derivative), options and higher-margin instruments to generate most of their income. XTB: The Split Is Already Visible At XTB, the divergence between what new clients first trade and what funds the business is the clearest of any…
Investors following the fast-moving prediction market sector learned this week that the Novig Mets prediction market partnership is now official, placing a federally regulated sports event-contract platform inside one of baseball’s biggest clubs for the first time. The New York Mets and Novig announced a multi-year agreement naming Novig the team’s Exclusive Official Prediction Market Partner. The deal, which begins this season, covers signage at Citi Field, broadcast integrations and digital activations. What Novig Is and How Its Federal Status Works Novig operates through a subsidiary called Ludlow Exchange, LLC. According to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) Designated Contract…
The FCA equity consolidated tape has cleared its biggest hurdle, with the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) publishing a policy statement on 31 July 2026 that settles the core design questions and keeps the project on track for delivery within the next 18 months.A consolidated tape combines trading data from multiple venues into a single source, giving investors a complete picture of market activity rather than a patchwork of feeds from individual exchanges and trading platforms. The FCA says the growth in UK trading venues has made that picture increasingly fragmented and costly to assemble, which is the problem the tape…
Investors holding shares or funds exposed to European crypto businesses learned this week that an EU crypto sanctions review, rolling out across three dates in August, could generate between 1,569 and 5,409 governance and counterparty checks across the bloc’s authorised sector, according to projections by FM Intelligence. The work stems from the EU’s 21st Russia sanctions package, adopted on 23 July 2026. Chainalysis has described it as the largest round of listings in four years, covering 218 designations in total. Among those listings: Harneys notes the package targets 14 crypto-related service platforms spread across six jurisdictions including Georgia, the UAE,…
The TenTrade Africa expansion has a new face: Wilfred Obasi joins the offshore CFD (contract for difference) broker as Regional Director for Africa, taking over commercial responsibilities from Victor Ufot. Obasi brings thirteen years at Exinity to the role, most recently serving as Partner Enablement Manager at the firm’s Dubai office. His background covers client acquisition, partner management and business development across FX and CFD markets, with a consistent focus on African markets. TenTrade Africa Expansion Gets a New Face in the Leadership Team In practical terms, Obasi will oversee revenue growth, client acquisition, partnership development and product expansion across…
The IG Group Underdog acquisition, announced on 30 July 2026, commits the London-listed broker to paying up to approximately $1.3 billion for the US prediction markets and daily fantasy sports operator, placing an entirely new category at the centre of its growth strategy. Deal Structure: What IG Is Actually Paying The headline figure breaks into two parts. The upfront consideration is based on an enterprise value of approximately $1.1 billion, with an earnout (a conditional bonus paid if performance targets are met) of up to approximately $200 million on top. IG expects an upfront equity value of about $963 million,…
BGC Group’s Fenics Growth Platforms posted a 22.9% year-on-year revenue increase to $33.4 million in the second quarter of 2026, outpacing the group’s broader brokerage business and adding to what the company described as its highest-ever first-half revenues. Total group revenue for Q2 2026 rose 7.8% to $845.5 million, a record for a second quarter, according to BGC’s Q2 2026 earnings press release filed with the SEC. Brokerage revenue reached $771.4 million, up 7.2%. The Fenics Growth Platforms segment, though far smaller, grew at three times that pace. BGC Fenics Growth Platforms and the FMX Momentum Story Fenics is BGC’s…
Online broker IC Markets has secured an RB Leipzig sleeve partner agreement that runs through the 2027/28 season, placing the firm’s logo on the left sleeve of the Bundesliga club’s men’s first-team shirts across all competitions, including the UEFA Champions League. The two-season deal, covering 2026/27 and 2027/28, makes IC an Exclusive Partner and the club’s official online trading partner with global category exclusivity. According to the RB Leipzig official announcement, the partnership carries IC’s brand tagline ‘Your Trading Edge’ on club materials. What the RB Leipzig Sleeve Partner Deal Actually Covers Shirt sleeve placement is the headline element, but…
TESS Payments secured a QCB PSP licence in Qatar by deploying a white-label payment platform rather than building proprietary technology from scratch, a process that Akurateco’s co-founder and CEO Volodymyr Kuiantsev says compressed a potential decade-long build into a commercially viable timeline. Why Proprietary Builds Fail the Regulatory Clock The Qatar Central Bank (QCB) requires all payment service providers (PSPs) to process and store payment data entirely within Qatar. No offshore cloud workarounds qualify. Any PSP that wants to operate legally must have its infrastructure physically inside the country before it can apply for a licence. Under the QCB’s Payment…
Investors holding Fintel (FNTL) shares learned this week that the company’s Fintel EBITDA margin expansion is running well ahead of its top-line growth, with organic adjusted EBITDA (earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation, stripping out acquisition effects) rising 11.2% to £11.8 million in the six months ended 30 June 2026, even as organic revenue grew only 2% to £37.4 million. The figures come from an unaudited trading update published Thursday. The gap between those two growth rates is the story. Organic adjusted EBITDA margin widened to 31.6% from 28.9% in the comparable half, meaning Fintel kept more of each…
People’s Bank of China gold purchases have reached a record 20-month consecutive buying streak as of June 2026, making China’s central bank the dominant structural force in a precious metals market that has swung violently this year. Gold’s wild 2026 ride in context Gold set 12 all-time highs in the first half of 2026 before pulling back hard, according to the World Gold Council’s Gold Mid-Year Outlook 2026. The metal surged above $5,500/oz in January, fell below $4,000 in late June, and now trades at around $4,055. Despite being roughly 7% lower year-to-date at mid-2026, it has outperformed most major…
Scope Prime oil CFDs are now available round the clock after the institutional broker extended its continuous trading offering from precious metals to Brent and WTI crude, moving into a gap left by the regulatory hold on CME Group’s equivalent exchange-listed product. Scope Prime, the institutional arm of Rostro Group, announced the launch for contracts for difference (CFDs, over-the-counter instruments that track an underlying asset’s price without transferring ownership of it) on both Brent and WTI crude. The firm says it is among the first prime-of-prime brokers to offer continuous OTC oil CFD liquidity, following the rollout of 24/7 gold…
Noble Securities has lifted its XTB 2026 profit forecast by 50%, targeting PLN 1.5 billion ($394.5 million) for the full year, but the analyst behind the upgrade has also warned that the Warsaw-listed broker’s share price already prices in ‘many positive scenarios.’ Mateusz Chrzanowski of Noble Securities made the revision to Parkiet, a Polish financial newspaper, following a record first quarter. His previous annual estimate, published in January, stood at PLN 1 billion ($263 million). A Track Record of Over-Optimism on Quarterly Earnings The upgrade comes with context that investors should weigh carefully. All three of Chrzanowski’s quarterly profit estimates…
The Cyprus CFD broker tax advantage over Poland narrowed to four percentage points at the start of 2026, and a crossover calculation from FM Intelligence suggests a broker may need close to EUR 3 million in annual pre-tax profit before that saving outweighs the higher cost of operating in Limassol rather than Warsaw. Cyprus raised its corporate income tax rate from 12.5% to 15% on 1 January 2026. Poland’s standard rate remains 19%. The gap looks clear on paper; the arithmetic is messier in practice. How the Cyprus CFD Broker Tax Crossover Is Calculated At the same EUR 2 million…
The Plus500 Wealthsimple partnership, announced on Wednesday, will give more than four million Canadian retail investors their first direct access to US futures markets through Plus500’s regulated trading and clearing infrastructure. Wealthsimple, Canada’s largest online brokerage, holds C$150 billion in assets under administration, making it by far the largest distribution channel Plus500 has signed for its B2B futures business to date. Under the deal, Plus500 supplies its full suite of proprietary order routing, risk management and clearing capabilities directly to Wealthsimple’s platform. Wealthsimple’s clients gain access to US futures contracts; Plus500 collects fees for the infrastructure underpinning every trade. How…