COPENHAGEN (January 23, 2014) ‒ A new online social trading community for serious investors, TradingFloor.com, was revealed in beta today by Saxo Bank in Copenhagen. The new portal enables traders around the world to share their trades with peers and transforms trading into a social experience.
Saxo Bank co-founders and co-CEOs Kim Fournais and Lars Seier Christensen said in a joint statement:
“We want to set free the peer-to-peer power of traders around the globe by enabling them to connect online with experienced and like-minded investors who are tired of input from salespeople from traditional banks.”
On the new site, live now at beta, tradingfloor.com, investors can share their trades in a community where all performance data is verified so traders can be sure of the performance of the people they choose to follow or copy. Saxo Bank, the Denmark-based online trading specialist, is the first major player in the financial world to move into multi-asset online social trading.
Kim Fournais and Lars Seier Christensen believe it may be a game changer:
“Having once revolutionised online trading as a first mover in 1998, we now want to democratise the access to trading and fund management by opening up an otherwise closed world of trading. We now enable investors to share their trades openly, interact with each other, post comments and strategies, discuss, follow and copy each other. We believe that this may change radically how investors will go about trading FX, CFDs, options, futures, bonds and equities in the future, making trading a social experience.”
Kim Fournais and Lars Seier Christensen added:
“At the new TradingFloor.com, you can see what the best participating traders are doing with their own money in any asset class of your choice. We are deliberately only featuring real traders with real accounts trading their own money to ensure a social trading community of serious investors.”
The new tradingfloor.com also features a range of valuable content for traders, such as market news and views, data, insights and trade ideas from Saxo Bank’s research teams and VIP authors. A real-time trade stream will reveal the current market sentiment. Britain’s award-winning ITV News correspondent Angus Walker has joined Saxo and will, along with former Bloomberg and BBC World anchor Owen Thomas, front the portal’s on-demand TV channel by reporting from Saxo’s own trading floor.
The following description of the new operations has been provided by Saxo:
Tradingfloor.com is changing. Introducing an incredibly transparent and easy-to-use platform, a whole host of important changes will revolutionise the way people trade the markets. At its heart is a new social element that allows you to see other traders’ views of the market and how they trade.
“We want to set free the peer-to-peer power of traders around the globe by enabling them to connect online with experienced and like-minded investors who are tired of input from salespeople from traditional banks,” Saxo Bank co-founders and co-CEOs Kim Fournais and Lars Seier Christensen said in a joint statement.
For the first time it will be possible to see what other traders are buying and selling and compare each other’s performance in real time.
There will also be a new copy trading tool, which will be rolled out at a later stage, which will enable traders to copy the trades placed by people they follow. It’s a huge leap forward in the way traders use social media to interact with the markets, fellow traders and trading platforms.
Kim Fournais explains: “This a ground-breaking project that is going to revolutionise the way many traders go about their business.”
How does it work?
Rune Bech, Saxo’s head of Global Digital Media, says: “It’s going to be one big playground for traders and investors.” A place for play for sure, but also an amazing trading tool and learning environment that takes the world of CFDs, futures, options, FX and commodities into the digital century properly for the first time.
A new dashboard offers traders a view of their own Saxo account performance. They can benchmark numbers and charts against the best traders in the community – providing unique comparison tools. It’s also possible to see how the account value has developed over time, month by month, year by year. Or traders can select the performance view where they can see percentage gains and compare them with other traders in the community.
Traders’ performance will be available in a public profile that others can view to assess their performance, trading activity, historic positions and much more. Users can gain insight into other traders’ strategies by following their trades in real time. Actual account size will not be public and all returns will be displayed in percentage terms. Users can sign in using a nickname so they can stay anonymous.
A leaderboard page is another unique concept. Here traders can filter and rank the community to find the best traders with similar interests. Traders can rank themselves on the leaderboard and develop their trading skills by learning from others.
Fournais and Seier Christensen added: “At the new TradingFloor.com, you can see what the best participating traders are doing with their own money in any asset class of your choice. We are deliberately only featuring real traders with real accounts trading their own money to ensure a social trading community of serious investors.”
Social trading: a new concept
Tradingfloor.com will radically change the way people trade and think about their trading. Social media has been around for a while now but has never been fully harnessed by the trading world. However social media is increasingly having a significant influence on investors, who want to enhance their level of understanding and access information, in addition to that provided by the banks, from real investors that put their money where their mouth is.
With the new Tradingfloor.com, for the first time, a genuine online trading community will exist, sharing information, trades and much more for the benefit of all.
“We believe that this may change radically how investors will go about trading FX, CFDs, options, futures, bonds and equities in the future, making trading a social experience,”explain Fournais and Seier Christensen.
Richard Perry, chief market strategist at Central Markets, says: “Social trading is a fantastically innovative product, we certainly will be looking at using it. It’s a useful tool to get traders on the site and actually sharing their ideas.”
Copy trading: a genuine revolution
Perhaps the biggest change is the introduction of copy trading. This unique new system will mean users can copy the trades of the people they follow.
Fredrik Öqvist, founder and CEO of ChinaRai: “It looks really exciting. It’s a huge step forward from what TradingFloor.com used to be and it’s a step in the right direction. It’s something that can really change the business completely.”
All trades done in the community will be visible in real time as they tick in. Traders can choose to only view trades from the traders they follow, and can filter by asset class or instrument. Traders can choose from asset classes including commodities, equities and forex, and from instruments such as coffee, sugar, Dax, FTSE 100, GBPUSD and EURUSD.
When the user sees a trade they like, they can simply click the Trade button to trade that instrument on their own Saxo account.
Private investor Praveen Reddy comments: “I think it’s amazing. I want to meet similar people who are in the same position. Hopefully we can learn from each other. I think it will be an amazing concept.”
Who’s it designed for?
From institutional and retail investors, to hedge fund managers and private investors, Tradingfloor.com offers something for everyone. Thanks to the unique social aspect, novices are able to interact with and learn from more experienced traders. They can follow top traders on the leaderboard and copy trades.
For the experienced and institutional investor, being part of the Tradingfloor.com community offers them the chance to stamp their authority on particular asset class or trading product.
Ian Coleman, First4Trading: “It’s good for novice, intermediate and expert traders because you are not just getting the trading idea; you are also getting the reasons behind that trading outlook.”
The social element really opens up trading to novices like never before. Inexperienced traders can get insight from big players in a way unimaginable before now.
Steve O’Hare from First4Trading explains: “Social trading is a product which is essential for traders who are just coming into the market, who don’t know enough about it and need expert opinion and can use that expert opinion in line with their market sentiment to make good trade ideas.”
What people say
Private investors are reacted warmly to the new platform. Doug Kennedy comments: “What I have seen is something that is pretty seminal. To bring together the social networking element, and combine that by pulling all the instruments you need from the City, this will give us the opportunity to trade them. I think it’s great. I’m very impressed.”
Another private trader, Kevin Ralph, believes the platform could be “a game changer”. He says: “It depends how the industry adapts to it because it will create a new honesty with the fund managers and traders that actually produce results in real time and in a public environment. People can’t hide behind their past track record, they have to look forward.”
Plus all the benefits of the original Tradingfloor.com
While social trading is going to revolutionise the market, traders will still want to get their hands on all the market news, reports, data and commentary that they have gotten used to. The new Tradingfloor.com will feature all the great content from top traders, only more of it.
Saxo TV will be there in its full HD glory. From interviews with top Saxo traders to updates on markets and data release, the channel is a great way for traders to stay up-to-date.
Britain’s award-winning ITV News correspondent Angus Walker has joined Saxo and will, along with former Bloomberg and BBC World anchor Owen Thomas, front the portal’s on-demand TV channel by reporting from Saxo’s own trading floor.
Down the right-hand side of the site is useful events calendar, listing all the key data releases affecting the markets around the world. From French manufacturing data and China trade figures to central bank releases and US jobs data, traders can see when every single important set of figures are released. Using their trading dashboard traders can track how theses releases have affected the markets, providing a useful educational tool.
Media inquiries
Kasper Elbjørn, Head of International Communications, +45 3065 4300, [email protected] Rune Bech, Chief Digital & Communications Officer, +45 23 11 99 99, [email protected]