In a world where speed of response can be the difference between making profits or losses it was never going to be long before the migration of spread betting tools from PCs to mobiles, via all stops in between, became the norm.

Today’s spread better wants to be able to watch the marker continuously, be fed with analysis and forecast and to take or dispose of positions there and then. Of course, the spread betting providers have responded admirably and there are a raft of offers out there, all of which are starting to become cheaper to use.

Ultimately this is likely to lead to a general increase in the total volume of activity in the market which will, in itself, provide a more dynamic opportunity for spread betters. Indeed, it is quite feasible that within the next few years, particularly if smart phone technology continues to increase in speed, reliability and security, a growing proportion of all stock market trading will be via mobile devices.

Potentially, this technology could open the financial markets to a whole new breed of players; people who have full time jobs but who keep an extra line of activity going surreptitiously on their smart phone throughout the trading day. Once again, any increase in overall volume of activity creates the opportunities for spread betters so these could be very welcome developments.

Most spread betting companies, such as IG can now give the technology that was available on PC as an app for the smart phone. Standard issue tends now to be full screen charting with position/ order/ alarm functionality, multiple indicators charted at the same time and interfaces supporting multiple views. Some of the platforms are now also offering tap, swipe and zoom connectivity as well as the stops, limits and parent & contingent order functions. They can also, of course, provide live news streams to give that responsiveness that is what the excitement is all about.

In 1987 when the trading floors were taken over by the digital workspace, who would have thought that just twenty or so years later, those PCs have become redundant and the global financial markets would be run from tiny phones? As to what lies ahead in the future; it would be a brave investor or spread better who would lay their bets today.

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