Simon Carter, SBM’s resident technology specialist, puts the best trading apps through their paces…
Featured in this month’s Master Investor Magazine.
If you’re anything like us here at Master Investor, your smartphone will never be out of arm’s reach. Whether on the tube, at the gym, in the pub or simply relaxing in front of the TV, the lure of 24 hour connectivity and the whole world in the palm of your hand is one that’s hard to resist. Throw trading into the mix and you have an intoxicating combination.
Yet the sheer amount of options (no pun intended) available from various app stores for the intrepid trader can make picking stocks look like the easy part. Spiked ratings, planted reviews and contrived features that seem great at first but serve only to distract from buggy core functionality lead to at best frustration, and at worst, missed opportunities and lost money.
So Master Investor have done the legwork for you, seeking out and testing a range of apps for both iOS and Android devices, mixing the good with the bad and the big with the small, to bring our loyal readers our pick of the very best apps for traders. Agree? Disagree? Have a particular favourite? Please, get in touch and let us know!
Monitoring
Undoubtedly the most saturated section of the market are the apps that allow you to monitor your portfolio, and not surprisingly there are a lot of ‘cobbled together’ apps with clumsy interfaces and poor usability. However, there are a few good ones.
Yahoo! Finance
Yahoo may have lost out in search, email and news, but one area in which they’re almost unrivalled is Yahoo! Finance. The smart app is clearly the result of a lot of hard work, and as long term users will know, it’s under constant development, with neat new features arriving every few months. Great app, well executed.
Bloomberg for Smartphone
Keeping an eye on the news has to be part of your trading strategy and Bloomberg is, of course, ubiquitous. Often media big boys are, rightly, accused of trading on their name and relying on brand awareness to obscure a badly made app, but fortunately Bloomberg haven’t fallen into the complacency trap with an easy to use, well featured effort.
Stocks, Forex, Gold & Futures
The snappily named app from Investing.com has been a bit of a sleeper hit, garnering rave reviews from almost all who download it. Like most successful ventures, it simply takes what it does – real time quotes, charts, TA, portfolio tracking, all of the standard fare – but does it well. It seems simple, but so few manage to pull it off as well as these guys have.
Trading
But that’s enough with the monitoring. What good is having all of that information in your pocket if you’re not putting your money where your, erm, finger is?
Forex.com
The Forex app is designed to make trading as simple as possible, taking full advantage of the immediacy that mobile offers. With that in mind, it matters little that the app is visually unimpressive – boring would perhaps be the appropriate word – but if currency, gold and silver are your thing, then this is a no-brainer.
E*Trade Mobile
If you’re a fan of the American markets, then you’d be hard pushed to find a better companion app than E*Trade Mobile. Including everything you would want and expect from a trading app, it’s easy to use, reliable and secure. It also has a cool feature which allows you to use your phone’s camera to scan any barcode or company logo and see full info on that company.
Robinhood
The new kid on the block, Robinhood splashed into the marketplace in December last year to a fanfare of commission free trading, a 500,000 strong waiting list and investments totalling over $15m. The app, which is currently iOS only, does exactly as promised, allowing users to trade absolutely commission free, with the company making its money from interest on deposited cash. The question of whether or not this model is sustainable is one that only time will answer, but it’s definitely worth keeping your eye on.
Other
Outside of monitoring the markets or trading, there are also various apps to let you try out your theories, using virtual money to execute those trades. Experience the curious thrill of frustration when you hit it big, only to remember you’re using virtual cash. On the other hand, feel the comforting glow you get when it goes disastrously wrong, but leaves your real bank account intact. Good for those still on the learning curve.
Stock Trainer: Virtual Trading
The best of the bunch, this is one of the handful of apps that uses real life data and prices to inform its content. In a neat real life twist, you’re also only given a limited account initially to play with, to mirror the conditions under which you’ll actually be trading. Nicely done and a must for those who are just starting out.