Before the internet, it felt like a secretive trading club employed an invite-only approach to training. Sure, you could sign up for financial services companies that would give you access to the market. Still, it always felt like an uphill struggle as a retail investor trying to compete with those juggernauts at the top of the financial pyramid.
Now, we’re not going to sit here and say that particular element of it has improved, but mobile apps and social media have unlocked a door to bridge the gap between some of the world’s top traders, the way they learn, and the way they look for value in any type of trading market.
This doesn’t mean there’s a way to magically make money on your phone – there isn’t, and those who go headfirst into trades just because they’re following an “influencer” are doomed to fail. In fact, it’s probably one of the only guarantees in trading – if you do not understand the market, you will lose your money in the long run.
Western Promise – Early 20th Century Dynamics
The US, UK, and Australia were the market leaders back then, and coincidentally, the UK and Australia were also at the forefront of the most significant changes enacted by a quickly moving new market fueled by the internet—the digital casino sector.
While other industries were definitely eyeing up the potential that the internet was showing and beginning to earmark more of their capital in exploring this new, disruptive innovation, few committed so forcefully in the way the casino industry did. This early gamble has ultimately paid off, meaning that mobile apps now play an integral role in the industry’s current shape and consistently look for ways to implement it into fresh ideas.
The Importance Of Casino Gaming In Digital Growth
Not only did casino gaming highlight how much the digital frontier would play a part in our lives, but it also meant that many of the barriers, mainly time and distance barriers, were removed by the concept of online casino gaming. Traditional, land-based games like poker were also able to transpose their games to a new online audience, which, initially, few were skeptical could happen.
Now, there’s a litany of poker sites and mobile apps where people from all over the globe will play against each other. Learning how to play poker is something many people now seek out online rather than traditional methods such as purchasing books. The internet has also facilitated pathways for people to watch poker and find interviews and tips from some of the top pro poker players. It’s been a total revolution that few believed would be possible in a game requiring a lot of bluffing, psychology, and physical interaction.
More businesses became privy to the potential of these wondrous handheld devices that we all have in our pockets—probably what you’re using to read this now—and trading companies started to notice there was a serious potential to bring retail investors into the market.
Changing Societal Dynamics
In the early 2010s, many finance companies were wrestling with the challenges of dealing with the evolution of payment processing. Still, trading companies were looking beyond that and identifying ways to pivot this new frontier into an angle that would attract people to the market.
Earlier this year, the FTSE 100 hit a new all-time high, and while this was down to many factors, the fact that the markets in prominent countries are posting such numbers shows that there will be retail traders out there who are making money. The art of trading is a skill few people possess. It often takes money, intuition, the willingness to lose money, even if you understand how a market works, and not investing money you can’t afford to lose.
The most prominent example of this was the GameStop short squeeze in 2021 when a group of retail traders banded together online to stop a billionaire hedge fund from profiting from the company’s demise. The stock gained traction, going up in price by over 700% in 2021 and also experiencing a spike in early 2024.
Final Thoughts
Without the existence of mobile apps in the trading world, this would not be possible – nor would the staggering rise of Dogecoin in 2021. We could pluck out a few examples, but the bottom line is that mobile apps have created a headache for certain traders who have always dismissed the power of those further down the ladder.
Now, more often than not, hedge funds and those with eight-figure capital will have a team of professional traders, analysts, and everything else that comes with it – the odds are stacked against you.
However, as more people seek help on social media sites like YouTube and Twitter, the number of people seeking trading platforms both online and via mobile apps will increase, with some institutional traders even using the technology to trade themselves.
