Markets.com
Markets.com, is a global trading and investing brand owned by Finalto Group, the financials division of FTSE 250 listed Playtech. Market.com is an electronic trading platform for trading on the foreign exchange market, commodity market, cryptocurrency market, stock market (both indices and individual stocks), ETFs and bonds through Contracts for Difference (CFDs) and in the UK & Ireland, Spread Bets. It is also an investment services provider offering physical share dealing and a quantitative investment strategy builder. Playtech is listed on the London Stock Exchange under ticker PTEC. The Markets.com brand is operated by a number of regulated entities which  are part of the Finalto Group for doing business globally. The brand is operated by its 5 companies which are regulated individually by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) in the UK, the Cyprus Securities and Exchange Commission (CySEC) in Europe. the Financial Services Board (South Africa) (FSCA), the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC), and BVI Financial Services Commission (FSC) for global clients. Markets.com offers web-based and mobile trading with leverage up to 1:300 available to all global clients, whilst those in Europe are subject to ESMA regulations that limit leverage to a maximum of 30:1 on FX. With  the introduction of ASIC’s lower leverage limits from March 29, 2021, clients in Australia are limited to 30:1 leverage for FX trades, 5:1 for Shares and 10:1 for Cryptocurrency trades. History. Markets.com began as GFC Markets and rebranded in 2008 as 'Markets.com' – this was done after a merger of GFC Markets' owner Safecap Investments Limited and TradeFX, a developer of software for Forex and CFD operators. In 2015, Playtech fully acquired TradeFX and thus Markets.com for the sum of €458m. CEO Joe Rundle, who had previously been head of trading at ETX Capital, joined Markets.com in 2018 . Joe was a prop trader with FleetBoston Financial when it was acquired by Bank of America in 2004. He then moved to retail broker ETX Capital, which specialised in high net worth equity trading before a period of expansion overseen by Rundle and CEO Andrew Edwards. In 2020, Markets.com launched physical share dealing on its new Marketsi platform, which offers clients direct access to over 8,000 shares from over 16 global exchanges, including the New York Stock Exchange and London Stock Exchange. At the same time it launched a quantitative platform for investing in equities called the Investment Strategy Builder[1 ]. Platforms. Markets.com offers accounts for MT4 and MT5 platforms but has since 2015 operated its own proprietary CFD trading platform and has always focused on technology to make trading simpler. Since 2018 there have been a number of major updates to the platform, affecting both the web trading and mobile apps across the Marketsx and Marketsi sub-brands. Marketsx refers to the company’s award-winning multi-asset trading platform. This allows access to global markets for millions of traders worldwide through CFDs and Spread Betting on 1000s of financial instruments across FX, Indices, Equities, Commodities, Bonds, ETFs, Cryptos and  proprietary Blends products. Marketsx charts are powered by TradingView, whilst the platform also features news and sentiment tools from TipRanks. Marketsi encompasses the company’s low cost Share Dealing platform, which is for investors looking to buy and sell stocks directly from more than 16 different global exchanges, including the NYSE, Nasdaq, LSE and many more. At present investors can access over 8,000 stocks on the platform with the number growing all the time. It’s also the home of the company’s quantitative Investment Strategy Builder. The solution gives new opportunities through financial algorithm technology, usually available for banks  and hedge funds. The quantitative strategies provide clients access to automated stock portfolios. This enables investors to create and manage their own dynamic stock portfolios using the kind of data and algorithms harnessed by hedge funds and banks. Users can access alpha-generating quant strategies and create their own unique strategies with an easy-to-use interface that lets them filter stocks based on dozens of different fundamental, technical and sentiment signals. Allowing the system to continuously backtest and optimize to find the perfect alpha-generating approach. Blends Blends are Markets.com’s proprietary baskets of stocks that are bundled into  a single CFD product. These allow traders to take a position on a particular sector or investing theme such as ESG, Social Media, Cannabis, Covid-19 and political trends such as Brexit and Trade Wars. Licenses / Regulations. The Group has licensed entities by the FCA (UK), ASIC (Australia), CySEC (Cyprus), FSCA (South Africa) and FSC (BVI). Awards. Markets.com won the Best Forex Provider of 2017 and the Best FX Platform of 2017 awarded by the UK Forex Awards. In 2020 Markets.com was named Best Forex Trading Platform - Middle East. References in the Media. Markets.com’s research and analysis is regularly cited  in financial media outlets. Chief Market Analyst Neil Wilson’s daily Morning Note is published every morning by the Investors’ Chronicle as ‘The Trader’, whilst it also appears every day on FXStreet. Wilson has been heavily cited by the press in reference to major market themes such as, most recently, the GameStop trading frenzy of 2021, Tesla’s investment in Bitcoin, the stock market rally of November 2020 following Joe Biden’s election victory and vaccine updates, and the appointment of Mario Draghi as Italy’s prime minister. Finalto. Markets.com is the business-to-consumer (B2C) division of Finalto, which  was previously TradeTech. Finalto is the financial division of Playtech PLC. The group comprises eight regulated entities focusing on the following brands: