Stock markets continued to hammer the share prices of some Retail FX and CFD brokers on Monday.

Two of 2021’s market darlings among public traded Retail FX brokers – Swissquote and NAGA.com – have performed the worst among their peer group year-to-date in 2022, with today being no exception. As of the time of writing early afternoon GMT time, shares of Hamburg based NAGA Group AG, which operates the CySEC-licensed NAGA.com brand, were trading down by more than 13% to €5.16, marking a multi-month low for the stock. NAGA shares are now down 33% in 2022 after rising 89% in all of 2021, and sit 44% below their 52-week (and all-time) high of €9.30 hit late last year.

Interestingly, NAGA CEO Ben Bilski went on social media (LinkedIn) late last week in Elon Musk-like fashion pumping his own company’s shares (is that even legal?), and posted:

On Monday I bought another bunch of NAGA shares.

I am extremely bullish about our future and the upcoming months and years! In 2021 we were one of the fastest growing trading platforms in Europe and have big big plans ahead!

It seems I am not the only one! Happy to share that today three analysts updated their research reports with a clear “BUY” rating between 12 and 16 Euros on NAGA!

Lets go!

Regulatory filings made in Germany confirm that Mr. Bilski spent €82,530 last Monday, buying 13,100 NAGA shares at €6.30 each. On paper he is now down 18% on that purchase in one week.

Gland, Switzerland based Swissquote hasn’t been doing much better in 2022, with its shares now down 26% in the first three weeks of the year after more than doubling (+133%) last year. Swissquote shares are down more than 6% today, to CHF 148.80 – their first time below CHF 150 since late July – and are down by 30% since hitting a 52-week high of CHF 212.50 less than a month ago.

Swissquote released a summary of its 2021 financial results in mid January with a press release entitled “Swissquote beats revenues and profit guidance with record results,” but markets seem to be more focused on the fact that the second half of 2021 was a lost worse at Swissquote (revenues down 21% versus 1H, pre-tax profit down 34%) than the first half of the year.

Interestingly, the share price declines are coming at a time of high financial market volatility to start the new year – usually a very good environment for Retail FX brokers, which make their money mainly off of trading volumes. Trading volumes are almost always higher during times of increased volatility.