Dukascopy is now enhancing its trading opportunities by introducing two new indices to the MT4 platform. Investors with Dukascopy Bank and Dukasocpy Europe Live accounts and Demo users can take advantage of these freshly added instruments for their portfolios.

Dukascopy customers can add the Volatility Index (VOL.IDX) and the South Africa Top 40 Index (SOA.IDX) to their trading portfolio. Also, it had recently expanded the list of CFDs with 28 Stock CFDs from Mexico, the Volatiltity Index (VOL.IDX/USD) and the South Africa Index (SOA.IDX/ZAR) for users of the proprietary trading platform – Jforex.

Dukascopy is continuously advancing the capabilities of its premier JForex4 platform, offering traders access to an ever-growing selection of 1,160 assets. These tools span from popular Forex currency pairs and gold bullion all the way to cryptocurrencies, stocks & ETFs.

MT4 is a complimentary trading platform with a limited list of trading instruments. In the near future, Dukascopy plans to announce the MT5 trading platform launch.

The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has announced the next steps to improve its Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS). The proposal to implement the changes was presented a year ago due to the rising concerns regarding increasing costs.

Financial services firms regulated in the UK must contribute to FSCS, which guarantees compensation if any authorized member of the industry becomes insolvent or cannot meet clients' claims. The compensation scheme aims to provide additional protection for retail investors and increase confidence.

However, the local financial services providers report rising concerns that compensation liabilities could be a barrier to new companies looking to enter the market and to smaller players who may struggle to stay in business. It might reduce the availability of certain financial services in the UK.

"We welcome the constructive engagement and feedback which will inform the next phase of this work. We want to make sure the cost to the industry for providing vital protection to consumers through the FSCS is distributed in a fair and sustainable way – that the polluter pays. We're continuing our assertive action to prevent harm from happening in the first place, which should help reduce the levy over time," Sheldon Mills, the Executive Director of Consumers and Competition at the FCA, said.

The FCA began reviewing the compensation framework in December 2021 and accepted comments from interested parties until March 2022. On 14 December 2022, the regulator published a feedback statement highlighting the need to improve the regulated firms' behaviour to reduce FSCS calls.

The regulatory watchdog has already taken action to address current concerns. In line with its investment strategy, the FCA is moving to a stricter approach to prevent potentially harmful companies from entering the market. The institution has also imposed twice as many restrictions on firms to block the sale of the riskiest financial products.

After reviewing and addressing the industry's feedback, the FCA's next phase of the FSCS review will analyze compensation limits and consider whether their level for particular types of claims is appropriate.

In addition, the regulator wants to survey firms and consumers to raise awareness of the compensation scheme's impact on investment decisions and traders' confidence. In the third step, the FCA will analyze funding class thresholds checking whether they remain at appropriate levels.

Admirals, a global financial tech provider, has taken its services to Kenya following the granting of their license from the Capital Markets Authority. As one of the first online forex trading brokers in East Africa, Admirals is poised to make waves across this vibrant and growing market.

“Admirals hopes the achieving of this license shall assist further growth in Africa and grant access to a stringently regulated market,” Admirals said in a statement.

The new license comes six months after South Africa’s Financial Sector Conduct Authority licensed Admirals SA (Pty) Limited to provide contracts for difference (CFD) execution and share trading options in South Africa. Additionally, Admirals Groups AS opened a new office in Cape Town as part of its move to expand its client base in Africa.

Meanwhile, in a statement on Thursday, the company noted that its Cypriot and South African subsidiaries had signed an agreement to jointly take over Aglobe Investments Limited.

Details on the company's site show that the firm is its subsidiary in Seychelles. Aglobe Investments Limited is regulated as a securities dealer by the Financial Services Authority of Seychelles.

Electronic trading major Interactive Brokers introduces PortfolioAnalyst Beta, now offering an intuitive dashboard with allocation, attribution, performance, risk metrics and more without the hassle of downloading PDF/CSV reports.

Users of the solution can view side-by-side summary statistics and drill down into details with historical periods, benchmark comparison, and frequency selection.

Interactive Brokers regularly expands the capabilities of PortfolioAnalyst, a solution that consolidates, tracks and analyzes one’s complete financial performance.

The solution now supports custom Time Periods and Cumulative Performance Statistics reports. When selecting Time Period and/or Cumulative Performance Statistics you will be asked to Include Long and Short Breakout Yes|No on the next page.

In addition, there are new crypto connections for external accounts. Coinbase, Kraken and Gemini connections are now available to link in PortfolioAnalyst.

Finally, Interactive Brokers now offers PortfolioAnalyst for all paper accounts. Traders can test trading strategies, generate performance on prospective client portfolios and experience Interactive Brokers’ robust platform before opening an account.

Despite intense pressure from the US administration in the weeks leading up to the decision, OPEC+ ultimately approved a production cut of 2 million barrels daily, which resulted in an increase in oil prices for the United States, a decrease for Europe, and more stable prices for Asia.

According to Jake Sullivan, the US National Security Advisor, the President is disappointed by the shortsighted decision by OPEC+ to cut production quotas and the Biden Administration will also consult with Congress on additional tools and authorities to reduce OPEC+'s control over energy prices. However, he didn’t mention that the Keystone XL pipeline cancellation and the suspension of new oil and gas leases on public lands made by the Biden administration gave OPEC+ the upper hand.

Sweet Revenge?

According to oilprice.com, the decision by OPEC+ was undoubtedly influenced by market fundamentals. Still, it was also perhaps a reaction to Biden's characterization of Saudi Arabia and its crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman (MbS), as "pariahs" for the murder of activist and supporter of the Muslim Brotherhood, Jamal Khashoggi. Although it might have sounded good during the campaign, the crown prince cannot be overlooked in the relationship between America and the Kingdom.

Furthermore, OPEC+ was blamed for taking the Russian side. It was also forgotten that the Saudis worked hard to convince Russia, a significant oil producer, to join OPEC+ ensuring that its actions would comply with the group, which it finally did in 2016, and to prevent US companies from dominating the oil market—a reasonable move for an economic rival.

Demand Stalls

Other sources reported that OPEC reduced its forecast for demand growth this year by between 460,000 BPD and 2.64 million BPD on Wednesday, citing strong inflation and China's COVID-19 control measures' revival.

"The world economy has entered into a time of heightened uncertainty and rising challenges," OPEC said in its monthly report.

Moreover, the US Energy Department revised its domestic production and consumption forecasts. It now predicts only a 0.9% growth in consumption in 2023, down from an earlier prediction of a 1.7% increase. In addition, a 5.2% increase in crude production is predicted as opposed to the previously expected increase of 7.2%.

Medium-term Uptrend

The oil price has broken above the solid bearish trend line, implying further gains in the coming days. We might see higher prices if it trades above 85 USD. The target for bulls should be at the 200-day moving average, near 98 USD.