“Day traders” were born during the frenetic Internet boom of the late 1990s when brokerages brought the stock market into every Internet-equipped home and office through online trading services. Today another entirely new segment is emerging silently, that of gen-y “Mobile Traders” – they’re young, they’re empowered, they enjoy actively managing their investments and mobile phones are their most popular choice of access. According to the Economist, there are over 4 Billion mobile phone users worldwide.

Mobile Trading with 1.5B Internet on Phone users

Just as, at the helm of the Internet boom, brokerages like Etrade, OptionsXpress built their billion dollar business by offering only online trading, by 2011 we could witness the emergence of brokerages that record the same volume of trades as the above online brokerages purely through mobile trading.

Interestingly, a survey from Scottrade found that “the idea of investing being fun is increasingly gaining traction within the generation – 35 percent of Gen Y invests because they find it enjoyable, up from 27 percent last year”. It further found that Gen Y investors (born 1983-1991, ages 18-26) are increasingly involved in the market and are changing perceptions of investing and that young investors are the most likely to manage their own investments and to describe investing as “fun and interesting“.

Gen Y Mobile Investors with MarketSimplified Mobile Trading

Another survey from Accelerant Research quoted “Gen Y demographic hooked on mobile bill pay and banking, proving that Baby Boomers have truly slipped into the unhip generation they thought they’d never be”.

The above surveys point to the rise of this new segment of “mobile traders” – mostly comprised of Gen Y – many of whom have discovered the stock markets from their mobile phones. This has become especially possible with the availability of a particularly user friendly mobile trading application such as what MarketSimplified offers.

In fact user friendly mobile trading platforms can increase trades originating from mobile devices. The following quote published in Barrons 2010 brokerage review reflects this phenomenon ...”…the mobile application, OX Mobile, is well designed, with streaming real-time data, charts, and watch lists, and stock, options, and futures trading. CEO David Fisher says, “We found that customers are doing significantly more trading through these phone-based apps than we thought possible.”

Clearly, for brokerages, More >