In results for the six months to 31st October 2009 financial services-focussed software developer TradeCompanion Holdings reported a 74.5% fall in revenues to £8,638 as the economic crisis dealt a severe blow to trading. However, cost cutting measures helped the foreign exchange applications developer cut administrative expenses by 29.5% to £41,011. As a result pre-tax losses fell by 36.4% to £32,948 and based on the company’s 11.3 million securities in issue losses per share came to 0.29p.

At the half-year end the company held net current assets of £40,673 with just £12,736 in cash. Net assets stood at £167,949 but this figure consisted of £120,000 in goodwill. Post-period end the company, which earns revenues based on the volume of foreign exchange business generated by brokers through its software, said it had noticed a slow improvement in trading volumes. In addition, the number of brokers using its automated FX trading services has increased from three to seven.

At a mid-price and all-time low of 4.5p TradeCompanion Holdings is capitalised at just £0.5 million. The financial crisis has seen its shares plummet from the January 2008 IPO price of 79.5p and while the firm has reported better trading conditions since the half-year end the uncertain regulatory climate for the financial services sector means we cannot be certain about its prospects. Sell.