Mobile Trading in the Android Browser

Recently I reviewed the mobile spread betting apps for Android phones that are provided by Capital Spreads, IG Index and City Index. As far as I can tell, at the time of writing these are the only Android apps provided by spread betting firms.

If you trade with another spread betting firm that doesn’t have a dedicated Android app, it doesn’t necessarily mean that you can’t trade at all using your phone while on the move. Depending on the spread betting company you trade with, it might be just about possible to use their regular trading web site via your phone’s web browser. Ironically, despite the plethora of trading apps for iPhone, this route is not open to iPhone users because their web browser doesn’t support the Adobe Flash functionality that is a prerequisite of most spread betting web sites. But Android does.

I took a few spread betting web sites for a spin on my phone, and in this article I present my findings. These are not meant to be exhaustive reviews of what can be done at each web site, so in each case I merely did enough to satisfy myself that mobile trading via the Android web browser was just about possible… or not.

For the more technical among you, I can tell you that my test phone was a Samsung / Google Nexus S running version 2.3.6 (Gingerbread) of the Android operating system. For the less technical among you, it was last year’s top-of-the-range Android phone that has now be superseded by the Samsung Galaxy Nexus.

Now onto my findings, arranged by spread betting firm. I have specifically chosen those firms that do not presently offer a dedicated Android app, because if they have one then you should use it in preference.

SpreadEx

In order to access the SpreadEx web-based trading platform from your Android phone you might first have to overcome a small technical challenge. Visiting the web site at Spreadex will take you by default to the ‘mobile’ version of the web site at m.spreadex.com, from where the Financials hyperlink will take you to a web page advertising that an iPhone / iPad app is available. However, I found that pointing your Android web browser directly at the web address www.spreadex.com/financials will take you to the standard (non-mobile) web page for financial spread betting.

It may take a short while for the next stage to happen, but eventually the Login widget will appear in the top-right of the web page. Enter your regular SpreadEx username and password and you’re away, as you can see in the following picture. It’s exactly the same as you would see when operating the SpreadEx web site in your PC web browser.

Although I chose not to place any trades, I have no reason to believe that I would not be able to do so, because I did satisfy myself that I could see my overall account standing, review my open positions, browse markets, and even look at a chart as evidenced here:

As far as I could tell, the web site operated exactly as it would in my PC web browser, and with a good level of detail visible on this phone’s high resolution screen.

Tradefair & ETX Capital

Despite being a platform-sibling of the Capital Spreads trading platform, which does have a dedicated Android app, as far as I know there is no Android app for Trade Fair. Trading via the regular web site in the Android browser would therefore be beneficial, but I found it less than satisfactory.

At first glance (see below) it looks promising until you realise how inefficiently the screen real estate is used. You can see very few markets in the top section, and very few of your positions or transactions in the bottom section without scrolling in each case. Operating the scroll bars on a small screen with chunky fingers is not easy without a great deal of cumbersome pinching and zooming.

It’s probably best to give this one a miss until a dedicated Android app comes along, and for your information I can tell you that I had a very similar — but possibly slightly better — experience when attempting to operate the ETX Capital web trading platform in the Android browser.

Gekko Global Markets & Delta Index

Apparently, Gekko Global Markets has a mobile trading platform “Coming Soon in Q1 2012”, but from their web site it is not obvious whether this will be in the form of an Android app as well as the more usual iPhone app. In the meantime I discovered that it is possible to access the existing web platform via my Android phone’s web browser as shown below. Notice in the picture how I am able to place trades, rather than merely reviewing markets and positions.

With the level of detail in some of these screenshots, you could be forgiven for thinking that they were captured from a traditional PC screen. Many Android phones support very high resolution screens, which lend themselves to displaying charts like the one that follows. Yes, you can access Gekko Global Markets charts when operating via the Android browser, and they look not-too-shabby (if a little blurred in my picture):

It is interesting to note that some weeks ago I would have concluded this article by reviewing the mobile spread betting platform provided by Delta Index. From what I remember, it would run on pretty much any mobile phone via a WAP-based web site. I mention it here because Delta Index have now moved to the same trading platform as Gekko Global Markets, so their old mobile platform appears to have ceased operation, but it looks possible to operate a Delta Index account via the Android web browser in exactly the same way as a traditional Gekko Global Markets account as just described. I tried it.

Conclusions

My opening question was whether — in the absence of a dedicated Android app — it was possible to operate some of the regular spread betting web sites via the Android web browser on a mobile phone. In the case of SpreadEx, Gekko Global Markets and Delta Index the answer appears to be YES! I’m not saying that you would do this as a matter of choice, but in an emergency — it’s possible.

The experience of Trade Fair and ETX Capital is less satisfactory, and probably best avoided using this Android browser route.

In most cases, the support for Adobe Flash and the high definition of some Android mobile screens makes it possible to run the trading web sites in exactly the same way as you would on a PC, with one proviso. These web trading platforms are not optimised for operation using fat fingers on a small screen, whereas dedicated Android apps are. It’s the same problem that I encounter when trying to tap small buttons on the screen of my Windows 7 touchscreen laptop, because Windows 7 wasn’t designed for finger-touch screens.

With the larger screen real estate provided by an Android tablet (rather than a phone), the experience of operating a spread betting web site via the Android web browser may be considerably better — though I still found it rather less-than-satisfactory when I once tried the Trade Fair web site on an Android tablet.

Given the choice, it’s probably best to choose a dedicated Android app, and I would expect more of them to be coming our way this year.

PostScript

If you don’t have an iPhone, Android Phone, BlackBerry or Windows Phone — in other words, a phone that supports ‘apps’ including spread betting apps — you might be able to trade on some platforms using a more traditional mobile web site. As I mentioned earlier, Delta Index used to have one.

As described here, IG Index boast a mobile dealing platform that runs on mobile phones which have Java support. So far I’ve not managed to get it to work on my old-fashioned (but state-of-the-art at the time) Nokia 6230i phone, despite my years of technical training.

Tony Loton is a private trader, and author of the book “Stop Orders” published by Harriman House.