The future is mobile and we’ve tapped on the minds of a few investors to find out the best free investing apps they use that help them to make their decisions.
Words by Lee Weiliang
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With powerful smartphones comes a variety of apps and a deluge of information made available to investors at an unprecedented level. You can access the markets from anywhere and at any time, and it can be quite intoxicating. Here are the three best free investing apps that are consistently running on our smartphones throughout the day.
1. Seeking Alpha
Available on Android and iOS | Free
If you’re thinking about investing on equities in the US market, this crowd-sourced content service for financial markets is our personal favourite, as the information is provided by fellow investors and industry experts rather than analysts from the sell side.
You can discover an incredible amount of information from reputable institutions such as Franklin Templeton Investments to individual investors and writers, on stocks that you have short-listed. The analysis segment is personally one of the reasons why we highly value this app. The articles on Seeking Alpha are influential enough to move stocks because of the large and powerful community of people who regularly use the app.
Seeking Alpha keeps you in the loop for a wide variety of company analysis reports, Exchange Traded Funds (ETF), news reports on emerging markets or fields such as tech and energy, and a lot more. The depth and breadth of information can be incredibly overwhelming, which is why we’re glad for the different sections – Top Ideas, Most Popular and Editors’ Pick – that make for easy navigation.
Unfortunately, Seeking Alpha barely has any coverage on the Singapore stock market but that’s just a small blot in our book. Any Asian folks looking to make something similar?
2. FSM Mobile
Available on Android & iOS | Free
For those investing in mutual funds, this app by Fundsupermart is a one-stop app worth mentioning. One of our favourite features is the bit about Top Performing Funds, which provides vital information on any of your selected funds from a time-frame of one week to a maximum of five years! Good stuff.
The app is also useful for people who invest in equities. We find the Ideas section particularly beneficial for our decisions, as the articles are pretty good in spotting investment trends that help shape strategies. Moreover, this section includes research articles that covers macro-economics, key investment themes, and outlook for the year.
Unlike Seeking Alpha, all the articles in the app originate from the research team, so you don’t enjoy the diversity of views that is essential in making a compelling case for an investment. Having said that though, it’s still a valuable app and one we highly recommend.
3. Singapore Stock Viewer
Available on Android | Free
Just as the name suggests, the Singapore Stock Viewer is a convenient app to have for monitoring your Singapore equities portfolio. It contains basic functions and sections such as Watch list, Chart, and Portfolio.
We find the Fundamental tab extremely valuable, especially in a free app like this. If you’re looking to compare essential figures such as NAV (Net Assets Value), P/E (Price over earnings ratio) and P/NAV (Price over NAV) for different stocks, you can find and employ this data and arrange them to suit your own preferences.
Although the interface doesn’t have a lot of bells and whistles, the app is quite user-friendly. If you aren’t a professional trader, we reckon that the Singapore Stock Viewer will be more than adequate for your needs.
Apps That Are On Our Watch List!
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Acorns
Made for the young investor with not much funds to spare, Acorns is a cute, well-designed app that lets you invest your spare change, the ones that you accumulate as you go about your day (those cents do add up!), in a diversified portfolio. You can decide on how aggressive you want to be in your investment decisions and it is quite fun to see your small nest of cash grow into a not-so-insignificant pile of money. Unfortunately, the app is only available in US right now but the team has plans to expand the app worldwide.
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Sumday
Who knew hashtags could one day be used as an investing tool? Sumday is a web and mobile app that’s currently in beta for selected invitees and uses the power of social media to let you add and invest money into a mutual fund simply by hashtagging #sumday. We like the concept and we’re keeping a keen eye on their future developments.