The “market” just doesn’t get the CFDs brokers. Not spared by the general risk-off equity market selloff fol
The “market” just doesn’t get the CFDs brokers.
Not spared by the general risk-off equity market selloff following Donald Trump’s introduction of severe across-the-board trade tariffs, the shares of publicly traded Retail FX and CFDs brokers traded down by an average of 10% on Thursday and Friday, basically matching the decline in overall US and European equity indices.
Online broker share prices
| 2-Apr-25 | 4-Apr-25 | Decline | |
| Robinhood | 42.68 | 34.51 | -19% |
| UP Fintech | 8.65 | 7.24 | -16% |
| Swissquote | 385 | 342 | -11% |
| Plus500 | 2810 | 2592 | -8% |
| CMC Markets | 213.5 | 197.4 | -8% |
| NAGA | 0.53 | 0.50 | -6% |
| IG | 969 | 925.5 | -4% |
| XTB | 68.6 | 66.4 | -3% |
| Average | -10% |
Share prices in various relevant currencies.
Led by a 19% drop in the shares of high-flying US neobroker Robinhood, the publicly traded online brokerage universe tracked by FNG saw an average double digit percent decline in share price over the two day Thursday-Friday period late last week.
That basically matched or even exceeded the declines seen in the overall equity market – the S&P500 was down 10.5%, the FTSE100 6.4%, the Nikkei 225 5.4%…
Market volatility and CFDs brokers
The irony, from our perspective, is that once all is tallied up, this past Thursday April 3 and Friday April 4 will end up being two of the most profitable days of the year for many CFDs brokers. Trading volumes were at of near record levels at many CFDs brokers on each of Thursday and Friday, based on several discussions FNG has had with the management at several firms. And trading volumes correlate highly with revenues and overall profitability for most brokers.
A similar phenomenon was seen at the leading institutional eFX trading venues. For example, FX Spot trading volumes at Cboe FX averaged more than $100 billion daily on Thursday and Friday, roughly double the $52 billion ADV the company saw in March 2025 – which was a near-record month for Cboe FX, trailing only March 2020.
The near term future for brokers seems bright as well. Where the world economy and equity markets are headed is anyone’s guess, but it does seem highly likely that we’re entering a period of sustained high volatility – in the news, in FX cross rates, in interest rates, in crypto prices, in equity prices… – all of which portend high trading volumes and thus higher revenues and profits for the CFDs brokers.
CFDs broker share selloff
However at this panicky point in time, these facts either don’t seem to be aware to equity market participants, or else they just don’t care in a sell-now and ask-questions-later environment.
Many CFDs broker shareholders are sitting on large paper gains, as the aforementioned publicly traded online broker universe has performed very well over the past year, which we outlined in our end of 2024 industry summary. For those concerned about where the economy, and the equity markets, might be headed, not to mention the general uncertainty injected into world markets by the Trump administration’s trade war, now seems like as good a time as any to sell.
fxnewsgroup.com