What broker platform offers good mobile trading for CFDs?

[Paul Beck]

[Justin Freeman]

Mobiles and tablets do a fantastic job of keeping traders in touch with the markets. This is welcomed as keeping up to date with news flow, your trading activity and portfolio performance is an essential part of making sure you turn a profit rather than a loss. Some trading strategies such as manual intra-day scalping will require traders to be near a screen pretty much all the time. The more hands-off traders, maybe running a robo or copy strategy, will still appreciate being able to keep up to date with events - mobiles and tablets will even allow this to fit in with a ‘day-job’. All the major platforms offer a mobile platform that is something in line with the desktop experience. There are variations in terms of how effectively the desktop and mobile experiences mirror each other. Some include synchronization of research screens so that chart annotation made whilst on the move can be found on your desktop monitor when you get back to it. It’s not just about how well the two systems sync. The bigger players (e.g. Pepperstone, Saxo,  IG, AvaTrade) tend to provide proprietary desktop platforms which have a greater degree of functionality, so even if all the tools don’t map over, your mobile experience will usually be one that ticks all the boxes you might want. Some platforms (e.g. FXTM, ETX, Markets.com)offer a lighter touch mobile offering but shouldn’t be dismissed as they still tend to provide everything you need to trade, just as part of a more streamlined user experience. Being able to quickly execute trades or place trade orders might be just the thing you want to do on your phone. Reputable brokers allow apps to be downloaded for free so setting up a demo account and booking some test trades would be time well spent. Particular attention could be paid to checking if they have easy to access functions that allow you to trade to zero / close all positions. The time when a market is in meltdown is when you’re going to really benefit from mobile trading. Whichever platform you choose, check and test how quickly you can manage your portfolio through an emergency situation.