Company type | Public Limited Company |
---|---|
LSE: CMCX | |
Industry | Financial services, Forex trading, CFDs, Spread betting, share dealing |
Founded | 1989 |
Founder | Peter Cruddas |
Headquarters | , |
Area served | Worldwide |
Key people | James Richards (Non-Executive Chairman) Peter Cruddas (Chief Executive) |
Services | Online trading, CFDs and spread betting |
Revenue | £311.2 million (2023) [1] |
£54.5 million (2023) [1] | |
£41.4 million (2023) [1] | |
Owner | Peter Cruddas (60.3%) |
Subsidiaries |
|
Website | www |
CMC Markets is a UK-based financial services company that offers online trading in shares, spread betting, contracts for difference (CFDs) and foreign exchange across world markets. CMC is headquartered in London, with hubs in Sydney and Singapore. It is listed on the London Stock Exchange and is a constituent of the FTSE 250 Index.
The company was founded in 1989 by Peter Cruddas as a Foreign Exchange market maker under the name Currency Management Corporation. [2] The name was later abbreviated to CMC and then changed to CMC Markets in September 2005. [3]
In 1992, CMC Markets became authorised and regulated in the UK by the AFBD which later became the Financial Services Authority (FSA). [4]
In May 1996, the company launched a real-time FX trading platform and has made claims to have done the first FX deal on-line over the internet. Although not verifiable, CMC Markets was certainly one of the first companies to offer on-line trading over the internet. The company pioneered internet trading technology with its MarketMaker software platform. [5]
From 1996 to 2000, Information Internet Limited, as well as supplying CMC Markets, sold the software to a small number of banks. In 2000, Peter Cruddas bought out the other owners, made the software exclusive to CMC Markets and the remaining parts of Information Internet Limited became the internal IT function of CMC Markets. [6]
In 2000, CMC Markets began to offer contracts for difference (CFDs) [7] and the following year it introduced online spread betting on financial markets. These two products would become the bulk of the business for CMC Markets. [8]
In 2002, the company began embarking on a major global expansion drive. It expanded quickly between 2002 and 2007 and opened offices in a large number of countries, as well as growing the spread betting business in the UK and the CFD business internationally. This began with its first overseas office in Sydney, Australia headed by Goran Drapac [9] and David Trew. [10]
The first North American office was opened in 2003 in New York headed by Josh Levy. [11] This was followed by the acquisition of Canadian broker Shorcan Index, which became its Toronto office in 2005 headed by Simon Grayson. [12] [13]
From 2001–2005, CMC Markets also operated the brand name deal4free.com. This brand was designed to promote the zero commission charge service, used primarily for its UK-based spread betting business. Commissions were later re-introduced and this brand was dropped as part of the re-branding in September 2005. [14]
In 2006, the company planned to become a public company via an initial public offering; however, the IPO was cancelled at the last minute due to market conditions. [15] [16]
In 2007, CMC Markets acquired financial media and technology company Digital Look which ran the financial information site Digitallook.com and sold financial data to third party sites. The company was merged into CMC Markets' main operations in London, but continued to run the website and data services for third parties. [17]
Subsequently, CMC Markets bought the Australian stock broker, Andrew West. This was merged with the CMC Markets Australian operation and renamed CMC Markets StockBroking. It continued to offer physical share broking services in Australia. [18]
Later in 2007, Goldman Sachs bought a 10% stake in the company for £140m, effectively valuing the company at £1.4bn. [19]
In 2008 and 2009, CMC Markets saw profits decline with the Great Recession. In response, Peter Cruddas changed his management team and closed seven offices and reduced the company headcount from a high of 1,100 employees. [20]
In 2010, CMC Markets launched its Next Generation trading platform to the UK market. The new trading software improved on previous MarketMaker software; amongst other things being able to quote market prices to additional decimal points and provide trade execution without re-quotes. [21]
In 2011, the Digital Look business unit was sold to Spanish-based Web Financial Group. [22]
After a return to profits in 2014, speculation emerged that CMC Markets was again looking at an IPO. [23] [24]
In July 2015, CMC Markets started to offer binary options and launched a particular binary option product known as a Countdown. [25]
On 5 February 2016, CMC Markets was first listed on the main market of the London Stock Exchange at 240p equating to an initial market capitalisation of £691 million. [26] On 25 April 2016, CMC Markets launched a range of binary products specifically designed for mobile, tablet and desktop. [27] On 2 June 2016, it was confirmed that from 20 June 2016, CMC Markets would be included as a constituent of the FTSE 250 Index. [28] On 15 November 2016, CMC Markets was awarded "Best CFD Broker" at the Finance Magnates London Summit. [29]
On 6 February 2017, Norwegian Central Bank Norges took 3% stake in CMC Markets. [30]
On 25 September 2018, CMC Markets issued a profit warning [31] which was followed, on 21 November 2018, by an announcement that CMC Markets had suffered a 76% drop in profits. [32]
In April 2019, CMC Markets announced that its CFO & COO, Grant Foley, would leave the business after the shares hit a record low following a profit warning. [33] The following year, the Head of Operations Dave Worsfold also parted ways with CMC Markets. [34]
In 2022, CMC Markets became the official sponsor for St Kilda Football Club for 3 seasons. [35]
On 9 June 2023, it was reported that CMC Markets acquired a 33% stake in a UK-based blockchain technology firm, StrikeX, for an undisclosed sum. The investment in StrikeX is the first from CMC Markets’ in positioning itself in trading outside its typical CFDs and Forex markets. [36] In partnership with StrikeX, CMC markets will be working on releasing TradeStrike, a centralised exchange with tokenized assets. [37] The diversification attempt into the blockchain industry comes after CMC Markets' 2023 annual report highlighted that the company's net profits had dropped 43% and the number of active traders decreased by 9%. [38]
In 2023, CMC Markets was awarded the FinanceFeeds awards for Outstanding FX Liquidity Provider and Outstanding CFD Liquidity Provider. [39]
No reliable data exists for the over-the-counter CFD and spread betting industry. However, in 2009, some industry participants commissioned a survey to look at the UK market and results indicated that CMC Markets' market share in 2008 was lower than its main competitor. [40]
Spread betting is any of various types of wagering on the outcome of an event where the pay-off is based on the accuracy of the wager, rather than a simple "win or lose" outcome, such as fixed-odds betting or parimutuel betting.
A binary option is a financial exotic option in which the payoff is either some fixed monetary amount or nothing at all. The two main types of binary options are the cash-or-nothing binary option and the asset-or-nothing binary option. The former pays some fixed amount of cash if the option expires in-the-money while the latter pays the value of the underlying security. They are also called all-or-nothing options, digital options, and fixed return options (FROs).
In finance, a contract for difference (CFD) is a legally binding agreement that creates, defines, and governs mutual rights and obligations between two parties, typically described as "buyer" and "seller", stipulating that the buyer will pay to the seller the difference between the current value of an asset and its value at contract time. If the closing trade price is higher than the opening price, then the seller will pay the buyer the difference, and that will be the buyer's profit. The opposite is also true. That is, if the current asset price is lower at the exit price than the value at the contract's opening, then the seller, rather than the buyer, will benefit from the difference.
IG Group Holdings plc, trading as IG Group, is a United Kingdom-based online trading provider, offering access to spread betting and CFD trading, which allow traders to bet on the direction of equities, bonds and currencies without owning the underlying assets.
FP Markets (First Prudential Markets) is an Australian contract for differences (CFDs) and forex trading broker headquartered in Sydney at Exchange House 10 Bridge in the adjoining building to the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX).
Retail foreign exchange trading is a small segment of the larger foreign exchange market where individuals speculate on the exchange rate between different currencies. This segment has developed with the advent of dedicated electronic trading platforms and the internet, which allows individuals to access the global currency markets. As of 2016, it was reported that retail foreign exchange trading represented 5.5% of the whole foreign exchange market.
Matchbook FX was an internet-based electronic communication network for trading currency online in the Spot-FX or foreign exchange market. It operated between 1999 and 2002.
City Index is a global spread betting, FX and CFD Trading provider. City Index is part of the Nasdaq listed StoneX Group and is regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority in the UK, The Australian Services and Investment Commission in Australia and Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) in Singapore. The company has offices in the United Kingdom, Australia, and Singapore.
FXCM, also known as Forex Capital Markets, is a retail foreign exchange broker for trading on the foreign exchange market. FXCM allows people to speculate on the foreign exchange market and provides trading in contract for difference (CFDs) on major indices and commodities such as gold and crude oil. It is based in London.
OvalX is a British financial services product providing financial derivatives trading such as contracts for difference (CFDs) and financial spread betting and, As of 2020, corporate brokerage services.
Spread Co is a financial spread betting and CFD provider based in the UK. Spread Co's custom-built platform is built and developed in-house for both professional and retail clients to trade financial markets.
Spreadex is a British-based company that offers financial spread betting, sports spread betting, and sports fixed-odds betting.
Bitstamp is a European cryptocurrency exchange founded in 2011. It is the world’s longest-running cryptocurrency exchange. It allows trading between fiat currency, Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, such as USD, EUR, GBP, Ethereum, Litecoin, Ripple, Bitcoin Cash, Algorand, Stellar, and USD Coin. Business operations are conducted from its registered headquarters in Luxembourg City, with a satellite office in Ljubljana.
ActivTrades is a UK-based brokerage firm providing an electronic trading platform to trade Forex, Contracts for Difference (CFDs), and spread betting. It provides services to retail and institutional traders via the electronic trading platforms ActivTrader, MetaTrader 4, MetaTrader 5 and TradingView.
SpotOption was a privately held platform software provider based in Israel in the controversial binary option industry, which was banned in Israel starting in January 2018. The firm announced that it has left the binary options business and is exploring other possibilities. It had previously announced a downsizing of its operations in Israel and moving many functions to other locations. The firm claimed to have 70 percent share in the market for binary options platforms, and charged binary options firms up to 12.5% of their revenues.
IronFX Online Forex Broker is an online CFD broker operating globally as a trade name of IronFX Group of Companies, with headquarters in Limassol, Cyprus. The multi-asset broker provides trading instruments and services to retail and institutional clients in 180 countries.
BUX is a European mobile brokerage company, based in Amsterdam and London. Retail investors buy shares, ETFs and cryptocurrency through the BUX app. BUX allows users CFD trading through its Stryk app and crypto trading using the BUX Crypto platform.
Admirals is a Tallinn, Estonia-based trading platform for forex, contracts for difference (CFDs) and foreign exchange transactions across various financial markets. Established in 2001 by Alexander Tsikhilov, it is listed on the Nasdaq Nordic stock exchange.
Alpha Group International plc is a British financial services business specialising in the management of foreign exchange risk for corporate businesses. It is listed on the London Stock Exchange and is a constituent of the FTSE 250 Index.
FxPro is a London-based European online broker that provides CFD contracts in foreign exchange, stocks, futures, and precious metals. It has offices in London and Cyprus and is regulated by several regulatory authorities. FxPro has more than 610,000 clients in the UK.