StockTwits is launching commission-free stock trading starting in the second quarter.

What To Know

StockTwits has created the new StockTwits Trade App, which will allow users to place unlimited free equity trades. The app will be offered by StockTwits subsidiary ST Invest LLC, a registered broker-dealer and member of the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority.

StockTwits is aiming to create a unique product for its users by providing a social media-centric trading platform that gives traders access to real-time market ideas. The StockTwits Trade App will also allow fractional trading so traders won’t need to pony up $1,200 to $1,800 for a share of Alphabet, Inc.(NASDAQ: GOOGL) or Amazon.com, Inc (NASDAQ: AMZN).

Why It’s Important

Co-founder Howard Lindzon came up with the idea for StockTwits after he imagined that a Twitter, Inc. (NASDAQ: TWTR)-like platform would be great for investors and traders. StockTwits launched in 2009, attracting traders with its use of “cashtags,” a feature similar to Twitter’s hashtags that sort discussions about individual stocks by their tickers. Twitter later adopted the cashtag feature as well.

StockTwits users now send an average of 150,000 messages per day on the platform. CEO Ian Rosen said in a statement the StockTwits Trading App is all about encouraging investors to be part of a community rather than relying solely on themselves to make trading decisions.

“At StockTwits, we asked ourselves who in the brokerage space was both attracting and keeping new investors by capturing the daily excitement we see around trading. We saw no one. So, we built a brokerage that matches the excitement and pulse of the community we’ve built,” Rosen said.

What’s Next

StockTwits will begin rolling out StockTwits Trading App this summer, starting with its approximately 2 million users on the iOS platform. The company will then roll out access to additional members and the general public shortly thereafter.

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