Former bank chief launches financial trading app
A trading social network on Apple’s App Store hopes to attract more than 100,000 consumer traders as members by the end of 2014
A trading social network available on Apple’s App Store hopes to attract more than 100,000 consumer traders as members by the end of 2014.
The Invstr social network was set up by a former global head of equity trading at Deutsche Bank, Kerim Derhalli. It uses gamification to allow amateur traders to test their abilities in a virtual trading environment, as well as providing real-time information and market sentiment to those who want to do real trading.
The app takes feeds from 40 global sources – including the Financial Times and Dow Jones – and crowdsources market sentiment from members. It also has a social element enabling members to chat.
The app is free if users just want to trade in a virtual environment, but the data they work from will be out of date and no actual trading takes place.
However, if they want real-time data feeds users can pay an annual subscription – costing around $95 – to receive live market data, news, market commentaries and research reports. This will enable users that want to trade in the real market to do so.
Derhalli said people can play, learn and share.
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“Invstr’s aggregated crowdsourced sentiment is the glue of the app and the community. Invstr brings together a diverse range of market data, news and research sources, and user insights to create personalised, easy-to-navigate financial information,” he said.
“Invstr gives everyone the chance to play at trading and helps those with natural talent stand out through their scores. People can finally get a mood of the marketplace, which is much more accurate than previous sentiment tools – it’s not based on subjective hearsay, but on individuals' quantitative predictions.”
See a demo here.
In 2009 Computer Weekly reported that traders were using Twitter to make decisions on buying and selling shares.
Trading-software maker Streambase said at the time it was enabling traders to link its complex event monitoring (CEP) software to Twitter through an adaptor, helping it receive information from the microblogging website to assist with decisions on buying and selling shares.
