SelfWealth Ltd (ASX: SWF) shares have been under pressure after slumping more than 30% from their 80 cent peak back in September. Despite its recent underperformance, the SelfWealth share price is still up more than 200% year to date at today's prices.
This morning, SelfWealth shares are on the move again after the company announced the successful launch of its US trading functionality. In the opening minutes of trade, the SelfWealth share price has risen 3.7% to 56 cents.
Plans for international trading
SelfWealth previously announced its intentions to capture international trades in its FY20 first half results back in February 2020. The company hoped to capture international trades that investors were performing elsewhere. The service had an expected go live date of December 2020 and forecast 5,000 domestic clients to be trading US shares by June 2021.
What's driving the SelfWealth share price higher?
On 7 December, SelfWealth announced that US trading for its retail clients would be launching on schedule, on 14 December.
Its existing 65,000+ active clients will now be able to submit a request to have the US trading feature added to each of their approved Australian equity portfolios.
US trading features a USD cash account, competitive FX rates when transferring money between the AUD and USD cash accounts, low-cost and flat-fee brokerage of USD$9.50 per trade and the choice of over 7,500 US securities across all major US exchanges.
Today, the SelfWealth share price is on the rise after the company revealed the uptake of the new service by its trading community has exceeded expectations. More than 7,000 active traders have requested the US trading feature be added to their SelfWealth portfolios in the nine days since the company announced pre registration on 7 December.
Equally pleasing has been the increase in new account registrations since the US trading announcement on 7 December. This will continue to assist the company's efforts of increasing customer acquisition into the new year.
What did management say?
SelfWeath Managing Director Rob Edgley, commenting on the US trading launch had this to say:
To reach the milestone of more than 10% of SelfWealth's existing customers registering for US trading in such a short amount of time is a significant achievement and many months ahead of our expectations.
