Mobile Trading
MOBILE TRADING IS on the rise. With financial markets moving quickly, 24 hours a day, seven days a week, it’s crucial that spread bettors are able to react instantly, whether it’s to get into a new position or out of an existing trade. The ability to trade whenever you want, wherever you are, could be the difference between a winning trade and a losing one. For example, when news of BP’s well explosion in the Gulf of Mexico broke, how many spread betters were sat behind their desks, at their computer screens, able to act?
Mobile is the future, because you can act like you need to in the markets – instantly. In the last year, the average percentage of total trades placed via a mobile device at City Index grew from 2% to 15%. With technology being such an important aspect of trading it is important that brokers remain on the frontlines and deliver what traders and investors want and need for them to trade via popular handsets such as smart phones and tablets.
So let’s face it – smartphones have conquered the world and their emergence is built on the benefits and convenience they offer users. This is a proven fact and users love them especially for their ability to connect to the Internet in an instant. According to recent research smartphone usage in the UK rose 70% to 11.2m users during the year to January 2010, making the United Kingdom the top European market. This trend has prompted spread betting providers to create special bespoke versions of their trading platforms that run across a broad range of mobile devices. Mobile devices today are effectively mini-PCs which is why they are often referred to as smartphones. The tendency seems to be increasingly heading towards mobile trading, with providers now offering mobile applications to complement their trading platforms.
The importance spread betting providers are putting on mobile is reflected in the significant investments they have made, and are continuing to make, in the channel through the launch of bespoke new applications across a range of mobile mediums. The advanced mobile trading technology means that investors are able to gain access to the financial markets via a number of different devices as reliably as they would using the online browser based online trading platform.
Markets are continually moving. Currencies, as well as some global indices and commodities, trade on a 24-hour basis and this creates opportunities but we can’t be around to always take them. Luckily, we don’t have to be always in front of a computer screen anymore, thanks in large part to the rise of mobile trading. Mobile trading is now enabling traders and investors to trade on the move. The exploding expansion in smart phone gadgets in the United Kingdom and elsewhere in 2011 has led to increased numbers of spread traders utilising mobile phones to keep abreast of markets and running trades. Anybody who owns a Blackberry, iPhone or Android mobile phone can now trade very conveniently. Most often, the mobile trading service is provided by some of the leading spread betting providers themselves but the trading platform would have been tweaked to make them compatible with mobile phones.
Mobile dealing means that users can analyse markets on the move, set alerts and trade online or even or even gain access to headlines and market commentary. Importantly, the trading technology has advanced to the point where reliability is no longer an iss and integrate important features like charting to help users in their analysis.
The growing amount of mobile applications allows more and more people to conveniently surf the Internet using their mobile or smartphones. Therefore, it is no surprise that spread betting providers have put a lot of effort into developing mobile trading applications Pre-2009 over 95% of spreadbetters used to use online platforms to trade with mobile trades just accounting for 2% – however today this figure is closer to 20% helped no doubt by the additional mobile trading applications providers have developed for Android and iPhone handsets. And now with even more spread traders trading via Smartphones, information is more accessible and convenient to analyse than ever before. Of course having 24-hour, uninterrupted access to your account doesn’t carry some downsides, and principal of these is that temptation to take trades at the heat of the moment.
Let’s take IG Index. The company over the last two years has rolled out applicatiosn for the iPhone, iPad, Android, Blackberry and Windows Phone 7 – all of which have been developed as bespoke apps meaning that developers can take full advantage of all the features intrinsic to each operating system. Clients can use the trading apps to open and close trades or deposit funds in their account. They can also use stops or limits to control the downside exposure or take profits. Most apps also support charts to be set across various time-scales to permit market analysis. IG noted that up to 21% of all client details are now executed using a mobile app.
To conclude mobile trading not only allows trading to access their positions on the go, but also allows spread traders to react quickly to any major market
events, which given the present tumultous market conditions is very important.
Any provider’s ultimate goal is to permit their clients to bet anywhere, anytime. To achieve this vision, providers have launched a whole suite of mobile apps for iPhone, iPad and Android. Trading is going to explode on the iPhone and iPad soon as more people adopt smartphones and more brokerage sites move into the space. Getting in first is the best way to get a solid foothold and those who offer mobile applications have already benefited from thousands of downloads since launch.