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Online trader IG loses a third of its value on stricter regulation
The online trader IG Group (London Stock Exchange: IGG-GB) was the worst performing stock on the pan-European Stoxx 600 on Tuesday morning, losing more than 30 percent of its value, after regulators proposed tougher regulations on some financial products.
Shares of other online trading firms, such as Plus 500 and CMC Markets were also significantly lower after the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) said it would introduce tougher regulation on firms selling CFD (contract for difference) products.
CFDs are complex financial instruments that enable speculation on rising and falling prices of currencies, commodities, indices, treasuries and shares. There are fears that retail clients don't know what they are getting themselves into, with 82 percent losing money on CFD contracts, according to the FCA.
"We have serious concerns that an increasing number of retail clients are trading in CFD products without an adequate understanding of the risks involved, and as a result can incur rapid, large and unexpected losses," Christopher Woolard, executive director of strategy and competition at the FCA, said in a statement.
The financial watchdog "is not banning these products. There are certainly investors who know how to handle them and how to use them, and can take a chance and balance the risks," John Gieve, former deputy governor of the Bank of England, told CNBC on Tuesday, adding that the regulator does need to "watch out" for how these are carried out.
"It's very difficult for people in the financial sector to realize how little is understood about finance among the greater population," Gieve said.
Evgeny Fetisov, chief financial officer at the Moscow Exchange, told CNBC he would be against a product that makes losses for 82 percent of its investors.
"When we think about retail investors… we don't want people to come and trade as in casinos," Fetisov said. "When we design our products we actually try to make them specifically attractive for the broader population so they can invest and make money long-term."
IG Group recognized in a statement that there are "shortcomings in CFD's" but it noted that the new FCA rules do not apply to firms based outside the U.K. that sell to U.K.-based clients.
"It's all about education," Jean Medecin, a member of the investment committee at Carmignac, told CNBC on Tuesday.
He said that such scandals are not something new and "so in the end it's all about education and probably it's also about our industry to showcase the value-added we can provide to retail investors so that they don't feel the need to trade by themselves and sometimes to engage into some kind of trading, which ends very badly," Medecin added.
The new FCA rules include mandatory disclosures of profit-loss ratios and lower leverage limits for inexperienced clients.
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