Plus500 Ltd (LON:PLUS) have given shareholders a confident update this morning, despite the ongoing market crash caused by the outbreak of COVID-19.
The trading platform service provider said that it is expecting 2020 results to beat market expectations, and has seen higher volumes of trading across financial markets.
Notably, PLUS500 continued to add saying that they had seen increased levels of customer activity since the end of February, and that revenue from customer income had been strong.
Customer trading performance has also risen, which has meant that PLUS500 have seen further gains – however these benefits are expected to be weighed out due to the effects of the coronavirus on global stocks.
The firm said: ‘We are at an early stage of the financial year and given the uncertainty regarding the duration of current levels of volatility or the unquantified potential impact from regulatory changes in Australia, it remains difficult to predict the outcome for the full year at this stage.
Notwithstanding this, we expect revenue and profitability for the full year to be substantially ahead of current consensus expectations.
The Company will issue further announcements as appropriate, with its first quarter trading update scheduled to be issued on 7 April.’
PLUS500 remain optimistic in tough market
In February, the firm gave shareholders a confident update – despite a slight slip in their 2019 fundamentals.
The firm told the market that 2019 was a “year of two halves” and praised performance in the second half following the arrival of new trading opportunities.
PLUS500 noted that pretax profit was $189.3 million in 2019, seeing a drop from $503.0 million in 2018, quite a substantial drop when comparing the figures. Revenue also suffered, and in 2019 totaled to a figure of $354.5 million, down from $720.4 million.
PLUS500 declared an interim dividend of $0.3767 per share, a decrease from $0.6191 a year ago. This lowered the total dividend for 2019 to $0.6501 per share from $1.9977 in 2018.
PLUS500 also announced a new share buyback program that would be commencing, which will run until August 31st managed by Credit Suisse.
Shares in PLUS500 trade at 721p (-6.94%). 16/3/20 10:48BST.