OANDA blends social media and push technology with mobile market access

By
TradersDNA

OANDA integrates price alert notifications and StockTwits social media streams with its popular iPhone trading app 

OANDA’s latest update to its popular iPhone trading app integrates price alert functionality and StockTwits social commentary on currency pairs and forex markets. This new release is available for free download from the Apple iTunes store. oanda1

“Most of our customers use their mobile devices for trading and they expect the same rich functionality they get from our online trading platform,” said Tony Savor, Chief Technology Office at OANDA. “It’s a big enough challenge to bring this from the desktop to the handset, but we want to add even more value. So we also leverage relationships with premium providers like StockTwits to bring best-of-breed functionality to our mobile platform.”

StockTwits is a leading communications platform for the financial community and the creator of the $(TICKER) tag for identifying and following investing ideas and information across the web. OANDA plans to extend the StockTwits social media functionality to its other mobile apps and trading platforms in the future.

Much retail trading is conducted via online platforms, are accessible via smartphones and other handheld devices, with brokers offering real-time trading, 24 hours a day, seven days a week.  On average, 70% of investors lose money, according to recent analysis from US research firm Celent. This means that the industry is subject to a high “churn rate” – the number of investors who set up accounts, lose money and shut their accounts down, vowing never to invest again. In retail FX, churn stands at 30%.

 The growth of social media-driven trading platforms – FX trading hubs that centre on discussion forums, leader boards and trade copying – has been seen as a response to that problem. According to one analyst  “Social-investing services have a potential audience in the hundreds of millions of people.” Many are traditional investors but a large proportion are first-time investors.

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