May 26, 2015: International Finance Magazine has recognized licensed US brokerage WhoTrades as the fastest growing brokerage in Latin America in 2015. After six months of working in the region, the company’s turnover reached USD 10 bn, while its client base, which currently stands at 8,500 people, doubles each month. The company’s management says that this success is due to its focus on promotion of innovative products and provision of a wide range of investment services.

Latin America is a fast developing region, and the fact that it is of interest for brokerages is not surprising. The market is becoming increasingly competitive, and success of a European company, that proved to be a key player, deserves attention. WhoTrades entered the Latin American market in 2014, turning this region into one of the key regions in its development strategy. By that time, the company was a global player, present in 90 cities of Americas, Europe and Asia.

No matter how large-scale operations of a brokerage are, it is impossible to enter a highly competitive market and stay their without making a unique offer, which would sharply distinguish a new player from other market participants.

As for WhoTrades, it benefited from high technologies. The company offered Latin American traders its flagship product, ??? (Multi Market Account) service, which allows trading on various global venues – from Latin America, the US and Europe to Japan and Thailand – using a single account. The service provides access to 15 stock exchanges on various continents, and in the near term, the list of the venues will double: investors will have an opportunity to trade on stock exchanges of Australia, Canada, Singapore, South Korea and other countries. Hence, clients of the company may carry out operations and earn profit 24 hours a day all over the world without leaving their homes.

Investors have thousands of instruments at hand – shares, derivatives, currencies etc., which help them implement the most complex strategies. Trading from a single account, a trader does not need to open accounts with many brokers to gain access to various markets and does not need to use different trading programs. This service will interest many categories of traders, speculators and long-term investors, as well as traders that use arbitrage and hedging strategies. The important advantage of the company is that it provides support for Spanish-speaking users, making it easy even for neophyte traders to learn to use the services.

WhoTrades has another important instrument in stock that allowed it to rapidly increase its popularity among Latin American traders: this is whotrades.com site. This is a powerful means of communication, which unites a social network and trading opportunities. These opportunities promote mutual cooperation between experienced traders and novices. One of such cooperation model is Chain Trading service available on whotrades.com., which allows traders to automatically copy transactions of other market participants on their accounts. The service is easy to work with – a user has to choose a strategy, join in, and the system will automatically repeat trading steps of an experienced trader on its account. Experienced traders that have already developed an effective strategy may receive additional income: they may launch their own system, which will attract other participants and bring its owner profit. In addition, it is possible to join or quit any system at any time. Furthermore, clients of the brokerage may trade using a demo account, as well as enroll in numerous educational programs, depending on their level of experience.

One more competitive strength of WhoTrades is flexible and user-friendly tariffs. As a global brokerage, providing direct access to trading venues, the company has an opportunity to adopt an accommodative tariff policy aimed at cutting clients’ costs.

Adam Wang, CEO, WhoTrades

“We entered the Latin American brokerage services market only six months ago, but have already achieved success. Local customers have appreciated ample investment opportunities provided by WhoTrades, a high-quality informational, analytical and technical support, as well as affordable tariffs. As a result, the number of our clients and the turnover increased considerably in this quickly developing region with an evolving investment culture. I am confident that this prestigious award from International Finance Magazine will allow us to speed up expansion on the brokerage services market of Latin America Adam Wang, CEO, WhoTrades

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February 11, 2015: WhoTrades Ltd., a leading global brokerage, winner of the prestigious Foreign Exchange Awards in the Best Deals Execution category and an ambitious player on the brokerage services market, is once again making its presence strongly felt by way of ongoing business expansion. This time around, the broker voiced its resolve to become the No. 1 online broker in Latin America.

Needless to say, there is every reason for the company to set such a lofty goal. Licensed US broker WhoTrades Ltd. specialises in providing direct access to the stock market, is a member of stock exchanges and ECNs (NASDAQ, NYSE Arca, BATS, Knight and Direct Edge). The company currently provides service to over 500,000 people around the globe, with representative offices in 90 US, European and Asian cities. And now it has set its sights on Latin America.

As is the case in other regions, in order to win trader confidence in Latin America the company intends to leverage the reliability of its operation and advanced technologies, and the combination of these factors will help WhoTrades Ltd. withstand tough competition and rapidly gain leadership. Unlike other brokers, WhoTrades Ltd. offers its clients more than just market services as its strategy aims to deliver a diversified lineup of products and access to all major global markets.

Advanced technologies enable the company to provide clients with unrivalled services. An example of such services, with the help of which WhoTrades Ltd. intends to gain popularity in Latin America, is the Multi Market Account (???) service. The company’s flagship product (MMA) makes it possible to trade from one single account on various global exchanges, ranging from Latin America, the United States and Europe to Japan and Thailand.

A trader enjoys access to thousands of instruments listed on 15 global bourses, and the list of trading platforms is constantly being broadened, with 15 more already in the pipeline. This set of instruments is sufficient to deploy any strategy, i.e. from speculative and longer-term to arbitrage trading and hedging. Apart from opening up ample opportunities, MMA is absolutely trader-friendly, with no need to open trading accounts at several brokerages or to operate various trading platforms in order to make trades on various platforms.

Chain Trading is another one of WhoTrade’s high-tech service, which has gained popularity in all countries where the company does business. Signing up for this service guarantees, even for a neophyte trader, the same returns as those of a professional. The service is based on the idea of following the trading strategies of a professional trader, with returns automatically copied on a client’s account. The service comprises a variety of the most different strategies employed on the currency market. Providing service to traders within this package is a separate area of the company’s business.

All services, including popular trading platform MetaTrader 4 that is used for currency trading, are supported in the language of the region where the company operates. A system of service support in Spanish was worked out for Latin America, and not only helpdesk issues are involved.  Trading ideas and equity research reports are issued by the WhoTrades Ltd. team for LatAm audience in Spanish. Online training programs are also available in Spanish. At present, five free training courses tailored to meet the various needs of traders, ranging from neophyte to professional topics, are available on the company’s website whotrades.com.

In addition, whotrades.com is also a large trader social network. Making use of its global broker status, WhoTrades Ltd. brings together hundreds of thousands of users across the world, who log in to exchange their experience, learn how to trade, make trades, read news and monitor market trends.

A number of user-friendly stock market services are integrated into the social network, with content, including research reports, forecasts and equity charts, currency pairs and other instruments. The website provides users with a wide range of free trading platforms, including mobile apps.

“Among the factors that have helped WhoTrades Ltd. make its way into the global brokerage elite, I would like to highlight not only reliability and advanced technologies, but also to broad margin trading opportunities and also to its trader-friendly tariff policy. I am confident that the combination of these factors will enable the company to become a leader on this new market in the near future. For Latin Americans, the company’s rollout implies convenient trading options with low commissions and ample opportunities, i.e. benefits already enjoyed in the regions where the company has a footprint, and which our region badly needs,” says Erick Segura, the author of many books on trading, and head of WhoTrades Limited’s central representative office in Latin America.

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Kamilia Lahrichi

Oct 27,2014: The two contenders who won Uruguay’s first round of the presidential election on October 26 will not bring about any radical economic change for this small country wedged between two regional heavyweights – Argentina and Brazil.

This nation of 3.4 million people earned the sobriquet “Switzerland of South America” because of its democratic tradition and strong economic growth, a model for its unstable neighbours.

Leandro Zipitría, an Economic Consultant and Professor at the University of Montevideo in Uruguay, explained that Tabare Vazquez, the leftish Broad Front contestant and Lacalle Pou, from the conservative National Party, do not have economic programs notably different than President Jose “Pepe” Mujica’s.

Their political platforms diverge in respect to social policies, namely education and crime reduction.

Mr. Vazquez led the country from 2005 to 2010. He expanded the welfare system to reform the education system and improve working conditions.

Mr. Pou is the son of former president Luis Lacalle. Under the banner “New Hope”, he has reached out mainly to the Uruguayan youth with a focus on education, culture and agriculture.

Following the footsteps of “the most humble” leader

Despite his popularity, President Mujica cannot run for a second mandate because Uruguay’s constitution bars consecutive presidential terms.

He will be remembered as “the poorest” and “the most humble” president due to his austere lifestyle. “Pepe” shunned the lavish presidential mansion and lives in a modest farmhouse on the outskirts of the capital Montevideo with his wife and his three-legged dog.

He gained international renown as he gives away 90% of his salary to charity. He also drives a 25-year-old Volkswagen Beetle.

This 79-year old ex-guerilla was tortured and isolated during 14 years in jail. He was freed in 1985 when Uruguay returned to democracy after more than a decade of dictatorship.

Notwithstanding that the economy has grown significantly during his mandate, the truculent head of state has lambasted rampant consumerism in international summits.

At the United Nations General Assembly in New York in 2013, he said: “it seems that we have been born only to consume, and to consume”.

At the Rio+20 conference in 2012, he asked: “what would happen to this planet if Indians would have the same proportion of cars per household as Germans? How much oxygen would we have left?”

Standing out in Latin America

Despite slowing growth in neighboring countries, affluent Uruguay grew on average by 6.2% from 2004 to 2011, compared to a global average of 2.9% and a Latin American average of 4.5%.

“Uruguay has become a small diamond in a rocky landscape,” noted Claudio Loser, visiting senior fellow at the Inter-American Dialogue, a centre for policy analysis in Washington D.C.

The World Bank sets out that Uruguay’s gross domestic product (GDP) grew by 4.4% in 2013. In comparison, the economy of Brazil – Latin America’s largest with 200.4 million people – grew by only 2.5% in 2013.

The South American giant’s GDP reached US$2.246 trillion in 2013 – 40 times Uruguay’s.

While the Argentine and Brazilian economies are highly protectionist, Uruguay is a   “mostly free” marketplace, according to the 2014 Index of Economic Freedom. It assesses the level of economic freedom based on the rule of law, regulatory efficiency, state intervention and open markets.

The Index indicates that Argentina is “repressed” since 2000 – the lowest level of economic freedom. Brazil became “moderately free” for the first time in 2014.

Hence, “Uruguay appears to be the logistical and financial centre of Mercosur,” said Nestor Pablo Aleksink, Executive Director of the Program Argentina Export, an organisation promoting exports, during a press conference in Buenos Aires on October 21.

The Common Market of the South (Mercado Comun del Sur in Spanish) is a free trade bloc and customs union including Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay and Venezuela. It has a combined GDP of about US$3 trillion.

Uruguayan government officials argue that the country could become a regional door to Asia as China is its biggest export market.

A March 2012 report titled “Uruguay: Economy and Institutions, the Key to Success” released by the Ministry of Economy and Finance points out that the country has the only deep harbours of South America. They operate under a free port regime.

Thanks to its 45 kilometres of paved roads per 1,000 square kilometre, Uruguay has also the most dense highway network in the region.

Sound macroeconomic and investment policies  

Although Uruguay’s economy expanded by only 3.9% in 2012, Mr. Zipitría pointed out to three factors that boosted economic growth in the past decade.

“First, Uruguay has seen an important increase in the price of commodities it exports,” he noted. Exports of soybeans, meat, rice, sulfate chemical wood pulp and wheat more than tripled in the last decade.

In addition, investment increased fivefold in the last 10 years mainly due to massive foreign investment in paper pulp.

“Thirdly, the government has had a pragmatic approach to economics, propelling some important reforms like a new bankruptcy law, a new tax law [and] a non-discretionary tax reduction decree to foster investment,” he concluded.

Uruguay offers a positive investment environment as the tax system is neutral with respect to foreign investors. Also, there are no limits for foreign capital in companies. A 2007 decree incentivises local and foreign investors with income tax cuts for businesses.

Uruguay, hence, regained investment grade status by Fitch Ratings, Standard and Poor’s and Moody’s Investors Service.

A May 2014 Moody’s Investors Service’s Global Credit Research notes “moderate credit risks, and the country’s reduced vulnerabilities to regional and commodity shocks”. The rating agency forecasts a “steady increase in the investment ratio and productivity gains.”

Yet, a high inflation rate remains a challenge for policy-makers. It stands at 9.1% – well above the central bank’s target of 5% plus to minus 2%.

Slamming the door of Mercosur?

The saying goes: when Brazil or Argentina sneezes, Uruguay catches a cold.

In 2001-2002, Uruguay followed Argentina into crisis because it was commercially tied to the fortune of its ailing neighbour. Uruguay was hit hard: poverty reached 40% and the unemployment rate 20%.

This was caused, in part, by the boom-bust cycle of Argentina’s massive 2001 default, which significantly affected trade flows with its neighbour. The county ran out of cash and faced difficulties in production capacity.

Unlike Argentine, Uruguay handled its recovery efficiently. It achieved macroeconomic stability while tackling its population’s social needs. In fact, it was able to access international credit markets quickly and secured US$1.5 billion from the United States Treasury in 2002.

Uruguay, which today depends less on trade with Argentina, has a robust economy with a well-regulated banking system. It thereby lives up to its reputation as “el país corajudo” (the plucky country in Spanish). Exports to Argentina have fallen from 25% to 4% in a decade.

Uruguay does not rely exclusively on Brazil either so that if the South American giant reduces its demand, Uruguay can strategically reorient its market, explained Minister of Commerce Mario Bergara in September 2014. Uruguay now exports commodities to 140 countries, such as the Netherlands, China and Russia.

In addition to keeping itself safe from unstable neighbors, Uruguay has diversified its goods exports with new segments, namely paper pulp and soybeans.

Thus, “Mercosur has lost its path,” said Mr. Zipitría.

Notwithstanding that the regional free trade zone has sought to boost commerce, discord among member states has stymied economic progress.

“The politics that Argentina is applying today does not favour the process of [regional] integration,” said Mr. Aleksink, in reference to heavy-handed policies to protect the local economy.

Besides, the union of leftist governments in Mercosur appears more ideological than practical.

“Although Uruguay has managed to attract foreign investment, there are some tensions within [the Broad Front] in the government that tends to evaluate international interests in ideological terms, and less in pragmatic terms,” explained Mr. Zipitría.

The political coalition deems trading with foreign countries a “heresy towards Mercosur.”

“If the political direction changes in any of these countries [Argentina, Brazil and Venezuela], maybe the winds could change in Uruguay too,” he added before the presidential election in Brazil on October 26.

Left-leaning president Dilma Rousseff came first before centrist economist Aécio Neves in the race in Brazil

A unique model

Thanks to advanced education and social security systems as well as the legalisation of abortion and gay marriage, Uruguay has pioneered a unique social model in the region.

It was coined “The Netherlands of Latin America” too because of its progressive social laws: Uruguay is the first country on the planet to legalise the production, selling and consumption of marijuana, as part of a groundbreaking experiment.

President Mujica declared that drugs are an “economic power”: drug trafficking exists because there is demand.

Besides, along with its Argentine neighbour, Uruguay has achieved gender development parity. In contrast to most Latin American countries, the nation has one of the lowest perceived levels of corruption in the world.

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