Plus500 logs strongest customer income in 5 years amid US expansion

Plus500 posted its highest quarterly revenue in over five years, with customer income up 33% quarter-on-quarter to a record $270.6m and EBITDA rising 19% to $95.7m at a 40% margin. New customers jumped 48% year-on-year to nearly 40,000, U.S. revenue grew to 15% of group sales, and management guided FY26 revenue and EBITDA above consensus at roughly $780m and $360m. Jefferies lifted its price target to £51 from £48 and reiterated Buy.

Analysis

PLUS is increasingly behaving like a volatility franchise rather than a simple retail CFD broker: the U.S. mix shift matters because it diversifies away from a single regulatory regime and broadens the set of products that can monetize macro dislocation. The key second-order effect is that the company’s growth is now less dependent on “more trading” and more on customer acquisition efficiency, which tends to support a higher multiple if it persists for 2-3 quarters.

The margin signal is stronger than the headline revenue beat. Lower acquisition cost alongside faster customer growth suggests the U.S. channel is still underpenetrated, so incremental spend can stay productive; that usually gives management room to keep leaning into growth without near-term EBITDA compression. The risk is that this is still a sentiment-driven business: if realized volatility normalizes and the interest-rate tailwind keeps fading, the mix of customer trading performance and interest income can reverse faster than consensus models expect.

The market may be underappreciating the strategic optionality from India and prediction markets/futures partnerships. Those are not just new geographies; they are new product rails that can extend the company’s monetization stack into higher-frequency, event-driven trading categories, which would make earnings less cyclical over the next 12-24 months. The contrarian concern is that the current rerating already assumes a durable U.S. step-change, so the next catalyst must be proof of retention and LTV, not just another quarter of acquisition momentum.

Key Decisions for Investors

• Long PLUS on pullbacks over the next 1-2 weeks; target a 3-6 month hold. The setup favors continued multiple expansion if U.S. revenue stays ~15%+ and CAC remains contained, with downside mainly if volatility compresses sharply.
• Buy PLUS call spreads 3-6 months out rather than outright stock. This captures upside from another guidance raise while limiting exposure to a de-rating if trading performance mean-reverts.
• Pair trade: long PLUS / short a higher-beta retail broker or market-volume proxy over 1-3 months. The thesis is that PLUS monetizes volatility and product expansion better than peers exposed mainly to transaction volume.
• If you already own PLUS, use any post-earnings strength to trim 20-30% and roll into longer-dated upside exposure. The risk/reward is now better expressed through options because the market is likely to overreact to any moderation in customer growth.