Ever since the dawn of online forex trading, messageboards and forums have formed the backbone of the online forex trading community. Although many traders are using social media to interact with each other now, the specificity and ready-made community aspect of forums means that they are still the go-to place for forex traders to glean information and wisdom from one another. Here, we have collected the ten most popular forex forums online so that you can have a look for yourself – starting with the ubiquitous Forex Factory.

Forex Factory

Alexa rank: 1,540

For a long time now, Forex Factory has been the leading online Forex forum for forex traders, with a huge user base and an established reputation. It consists of nine sub-forums on a range of topics including Interactive Trading, Trading Systems, Trading Discussion, Platform Tech, Broker Discussion, Trading Journals, Rookie Talk, Commodities and Stocks, and Commercial Content.  As well as displaying these on the home page, there is also a highlights section showing all the most recent posts, one of the best trading calendars on the web, market updates, and news from a variety of online sources. tatistics.

DailyFX Forum

Alexa rank: 4,669

Unlike most of the forums in this list, DailyFX is owned by a leading broker, FXCM, and the content is tailored towards their clients. However, there is plenty on here to interest customers of other brokerages, and it’s certainly one of the most active forums in the FX community. The forum itself takes a very segmented approach, with no fewer than 24 sub-forums grouped under categories such as Education and Analyst Research, Trade the Markets with our Analysts, Traders Lounge, Forex Education, Automated Trading, and FXCM Account Support and Trading Platforms. In addition to the very well populated English language forum, there are also sub-forums in eight other languages, including Japanese, Spanish, and Swedish.

MT5 Forum (Invest Social)

Alexa rank: 4,211

As the name suggests, this is the official forum for users of the popular Metatrader trading platform, offering users the chance to dip into the combined expertise of the community that centres around this platform.

Despite ostensibly being a forum for MT5 users, there is just as much (if not more) content surrounding the more popular Metatrader 4, and quite a lot of general forex trading discussion for users of all platforms, particularly in the Trading Discussion area of the forum.

Babypips Forum

Alexa rank: 7,594

As one of the foremost Forex trading educational websites, it is natural that this discussion board focuses on the needs of beginner traders, although some of the conversations might be of interest to more experienced traders too, especially the Analyst Arena sub-forum. There are dedicated sections for different disciplines, such as fundamental analysis and technical analysis, day and swing trading strategies, and automated trading. A great place to further your knowledge and find answers to your specific questions.

MQL4 Forum

Alexa rank: 9,994

While the MT5 forum seems to have hoovered up quite a substantial chunk of the Metatrader user community, this forum, which is dedicated to MT4 and its programming language MQL4. Although there is some general trading discussion here, most of the discussions are specifically about programming MQL4 for automated trading and signal generation, so if you’re looking to learn more about this topic or find answers to any questions you might have about it, then this forum is probably the best resource on the web for this.

EarnForex

Alexa rank: 16,708

While this forum doesn’t really offer anything out of the ordinary, it is very well-populated and you can always get quick responses to your questions. It contains 20 different forums related to different aspects of forex trading, including Technical and Fundamental Analysis, Trading Systems and Strategies, Forex Brokers, and Forex Education, a section dedicated to Metatrader, and sub-forums in non-English languages such as Russian, Chinese, and Spanish.

EliteTrader

Alexa rank: 28,603

Unlike most of the other Forex forums on this list, EliteTrader doesn’t split up its forum into sub-sections, with everything taking place on the one messageboard. This makes it a little trickier to find the topics that you are looking for, but only a little, and it has the knock-on effect of making the forum more inclusive. This means that, whenever you post something new, it will be seen by the whole community, and you will be more likely to get a quick response.

Trade2Win Forums

Alexa rank: 24,349

Although this forum purports to cater for traders in all markets, most of the traffic comes from forex traders, and these sections are by far the most popular in terms of viewer and post numbers. The sub-forums – of which there are many – are divided into categories such as T2W Community, Trading Career, Trading Tools, Trading Control, Trading Methods, Trading Brokers, Trading Choices, and New Traders, but it is the Forex discussion (in the Trading Choices sub-section) that will be of most interest to FX traders, and this is coincidentally the most popular section of the forum.

Forex Abode Forums

Alexa rank: 85,269

With the slogan ‘Vision for the Heights, Looking at the Depths’, it isn’t surprising to see that this Forex forum has quite a heavy emphasis on analysis, with a large, well-populated sub-forum dedicated to this subject. With a breezy, non-standard front end incorporating more graphics than your typical forum, and a certain light-heartedness pervading the whole site, it makes a refreshing change from the dry, text-heavy appearance sported by many trading forums. It’s also a repository for quite a wide range of resources that can be useful when trading forex, including free trading algorithms, a forex sentiments meter, and a section on trading systems.

Forex TSD

Alexa rank: 25,668

Nonetheless,rather than sticking the categories on the home page, this forum just puts all the latest and busiest discussions up there with a link to the sub-forum. This is actually quite helpful, as it reduces the risk of posting a question in the wrong section and not having it seen by the right people. It’s just as well, because one of the main strengths of this forum is that it covers lots of niche areas, with big sections on Metatrader 4 and Harmonic Trading, and these might not have had the chance to grow had they been hived away in obscure sub-forums.

Editors’ Note: As of 2018, the Forex TSD forum moved to become part of the MQL5 community

Market Place

MKTPlace is a leading digital and social media platform for traders and investors. MKTPlace offers premiere resources for trading and investing education, digital resources for personal finance, news about IoT, AI, Blockchain, Business, market analysis and education resources and guides.

The trend of integrating two completely different fields to find a comprehensive solution to a problem is becoming commonplace. Scientists and researchers have experimented with it and have received positive results. Now, they are taking it to the next level. It might look odd to some of us but gamification and online trading integration is on its way.

In one of our recent posts, we reviewed the current trends of gamification in online trading and how it affects traders’ experience. 

Gamification

Gamification is a technique which applies game elements and mechanics on real-world situations. This emerging field has been able to capture the attention of many businesses because it produces the desired results for your business in less time by engaging your targeted audience to participate. Gamification is also used in many other fields with varied success rates.

Online Trading

The trading of securities online has become the norm after wider adoption and acceptance of internet. The popularity of online trading is on the rise as suggested by statistics and the trend is going to continue in the same fashion. Many new traders are also entering the market regularly after seeing the success their counterparts are enjoying in the field.

Integration

Efforts are underway and some positive results have also been achieved which will further speed up the process of gamification of online trading. Most traders who are experienced hang out in chat rooms and forums to keep themselves updated but they neglect the booming platform of social media. New traders, who want up to date information but do not know where to look for it and lack the required knowledge to succeed in online trading, will find this useful.

Using game elements or developing tools and technologies that could help online traders in their quest to success can play a crucial role. Social media can be involved to make things easier by sharing the latest news and articles to help investors make the right decisions. There should be a review and ratings method followed to rate forums which makes it easier for traders to select the best forum to get the knowledge.

Some people are in favor of gamification of online trading while others criticize it by saying there is a huge difference between real world and virtual situations. A real world loss could cost you money but a virtual loss would not hurt you that much. Irrespective of what both parties say, gamifying online trading has turned into a more engaging and enjoyable experience.

Many trading services, such as eToro, have experimented with social media and game elements. The flexibility to experiment in the game and learning different things without putting your hard-earned money at stake is the biggest advantage gamification of online trading can give to traders. Using virtual funds in games will help you learn and experiment with different things that could prove to be handy when you trade with real money.

Many people who don’t like games only look at one side of the picture to shape their opinion. They only focus on health issues and other problems associated with gaming and completely neglect the positive side of gaming. You can learn a lot regarding stock investing. There is even a social platform called Cloud Stock where you can test your investing skills while at the same time competing with friends. Recommend stock to your friends. Invest with your friends and see who can earn a better return.

If used properly, gamification can be used as an educating tool to teach new investors the tricks that could make them more capable of doing well when making investments in the real world.

Another common mistake made by traders who are new to this field is to follow the footsteps of famous traders who are earning more profits. This might or might not be fruitful for new traders because it purely depends on the situation.  This problem is solved by using gamified investor tools which can help young investors to check whether a strategy would work for them in particular situations or not without risking their money.

Now, you can easily get access to relevant material to get the help you need but you must know where to look for it.

Relevant Posts:

The Gamification of Online Trading 

How “Tradimo Play” ApS integrates Gamification and Trading

Market Place

MKTPlace is a leading digital and social media platform for traders and investors. MKTPlace offers premiere resources for trading and investing education, digital resources for personal finance, news about IoT, AI, Blockchain, Business, market analysis and education resources and guides.

“Games are the new normal” Al Gore

Many companies are now focusing their attention on developing useful applications by integrating two or more fields. Combining the concepts of multiple fields to solve a common problem has become quite common in this day and age. The companies who experimented with this formula have also attained success and that has inspired other companies to follow suit. This might look odd to many but it is effective and has proven its worth by providing brilliant solutions to complex problems.

Tradimo Play ApS

The latest experiments in the series of events are being done to fuse gamification with trading. A new company known as Tradimo Play ApS has developed gamification tools to take trading to the ever expanding gaming community and to anyone who wants to learn trading concepts. Tradimo Play ApS has also tried to cater to the people who prefer mobile devices by launching its mobile app for popular mobile platforms which has managed to gain the attention of major brokers and traders.

The company has diverted all its energy towards bringing something new to the market and has succeeded in doing so in the form of its latest gamification tools. Innovation and creativity is what they are striving and wants to give something unique and refreshing to their clients which is the right way to go especially in today’s competitive world.

Gamification

Gamification is thinking and applying game elements in non-gaming environment to solve major problems. The main purpose of gamification is to ensure user participation and it has succeeded in achieving that goal. It is used in many different fields, from education to entertainment. It is focused on main players and how they act in a game situation. A concept of reward is also there to motivate the player in achieving their goals.

Internet as a Medium

People who like to trade frequently are still using chat rooms and other instant messaging platforms to stay up to date with the latest happenings and indulging in discussion of hot topics. While the brokers have extended their reach and increased their customer base, many new traders are still not familiar with investments and stocks.

Online Trading and Gamification

Online trading has started to look more or less like role-playing games if you analyze closely. You will have to make decisions that could bring about a change, for example losses and savings. The popularity of online trading will grow in the years to come which will give an opportunity to companies like Tradimo Play ApS to develop gamification tools and capture a large market share with their handy tools for trading.
Social media has helped traders in interacting with the stock markets in a more reserved way. Times have changed and now you don’t need exclusive access to read experts opinion and predictions. Many traders believe articles posted on social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter influence business and the trading decisions they take today.

Some might not agree with the idea of integrating real world with virtual world, especially when your money is at stake. They argue that in-game situations won’t match with real-world situations and both are completely different. A loss in the game would not hurt you but a loss in business and trading will hurt you bad because you will lose your hard-earned money in the process.

Trading decisions are still made on the basis of trade signals and not only on the articles which traders read on social media. Frequent traders know where to look when it comes to finding the latest news and to know more about trends but it might be a problem for new or part-time traders. Gamification elements could come in handy in rating forums for authenticity and credibility so that part-time traders could easily select the right trading forum to learn what is happening in the world of trading.

Social media has sped up the gamification process of the online trading market. It will take time but gamification and online trading together does have a bright future and could benefit many traders. Proper execution using the tools could even turn critics into supporters. People would be slow to react initially but with the passage of time things are bound to change.

Market Place

MKTPlace is a leading digital and social media platform for traders and investors. MKTPlace offers premiere resources for trading and investing education, digital resources for personal finance, news about IoT, AI, Blockchain, Business, market analysis and education resources and guides.

Digital currencies like Bitcoin have been gaining considerable recognition and popularity across the globe. Many people now trade and invest in crypto-currencies and actually use it to it buy goods and services which they otherwise buy with actual money, which is amazing. Bitcoins has been stirring up the world of digital currency exchange, making transactions cost-effective and faster. Bitcoin transactions are processed securely over the internet through various Bitcoin platforms and trade centres.

All Bitcoin transactions conducted over various cryptocurrency exchanges are secured with cryptography. Every single Bitcoin trade has its own digital signature and key which can be identified. Bitcoin’s popularity and largely fluctuating prices has led many people to join in on the fun and action. There are two methods through which you can engage in making money using Bitcoin exchanges. The first method is common and involves a trader buying a certain number Bitcoins in the hopes it would rise in value and make him a profit.

The second method involves the processing of those Bitcoins which is known as ‘Bitcoin mining’. Once this type of transaction has been processed, the transaction is authorized by ‘miners’ on the network which employ complex and sophisticated algorithms.  And once they verify a transaction successfully, the get rewarded in terms of commissions and transactions fees for harvesting new Bitcoins.

Whether you are a first-timer looking to get lucky through investing in Bitcoin or a professional Bitcoiner who has traded and made a lot of money, it is imperative you understand there are a lot of pretty cool Bitcoin websites where you can trade all sorts of crypto-currencies. Usually, traders stick to just one or two, but why limit yourself when you can conduct your transactions over some of the best websites there are.

Ten Best Bitcoin Website You Will Fall in Love with

1.Bitcoi.org

Now, this here is a genuine Bitcoin client which has everything. The website will teach you to work and trade with Bitcoins. You’ll get to learn a ton of Bitcoin vocabulary (which is critical). You’ll have access to various Bitcoin charts and data on businesses and developers.

2. Coinbase.com

Through just a single Bitcoin account in Coinbase.com, you will have the power to trade Bitcoins efficiently and effectively. The website has a quick verification process in correspondence with Chase Bank. It is strongly recommended you create an account with Coinbase.com, if you use multiple bank accounts. Furthermore, if you can’t afford the initial ($1,000) investment to begin the game, you can choose to buy certain parts of a Bitcoin. For example, Coinbase.com will allow you to buy about a .01 of the $1,000 Bitcoin, which is $10.

3. Bitcoin Forum

The Bitcoin Forum is an awesome website where you can actually talk about your investment plans and ideas, the forum features general information for first-time traders and also focuses on providing users all the latest Bitcoin news pertaining to the Bitcoin economy and also designed areas where users can come for technical support and learn how to develop their projects more efficiently.

4. Mt.Gox

Mt.Gox is perhaps one of the earliest Bitcoin platforms made for trading. And you’d be surprised to know Mt.Gox still owns and controls a massive share of Bitcoin trades. It allows Bitcoin traders from all over the world to buy, exchange and sell their Bitcoins in a variety of currencies. Plus, Mt.Gox also provides users various trading tools which help users and merchants to get their Bitcoin payments via their sites.

5. Bitcoin Wiki

The Bitcoin Wiki website gives out valuable information pertaining to the Bitcoin to every user in a format which closely resembles Wikipedia. Bitcoin Wiki offers traders all sorts of content on Bitcoins in various languages. The site also directs you to various Bitcoin meeting places and communities as well as offers a really cool forum.

6. Howtobitcoin.info

Howtobitcoin.info is a pretty useful platform which provides users essential Bitcoin software, charts, stores, social media option, resources and digital wallets.

7. Blockchain.info

Developed by Qkos Services, based in UK, Blockchain.info provides Bitcoin traders information on Bitcoins which have been mined or if they are being mined. It is indeed a site you should consider checking out.

8. Bitcoinx

Bitcoinx.com is another excellent website which provides a certain mining tool to Bitcoin miners along with a profitability calculation tool that makes it easy for miners to realize the complexity of the mining process, how many Bitcoins there are per block, and the costs of mining along with several other factors. The website also provides miners various Bitcoin market charts, blogs and accurate, real-time information on the price and performance of Bitcoin mining.

9. WeUseCoins.com

Another brilliant website which is designed to make Bitcoin trading simple and easy for beginners, the website provides basic information on how to begin things for both individual traders and merchants interested in tapping the Bitcoin market. WeUseCoins.com is an excellent guide to Bitcoin trading.

10. Start Bit Coin

This is another platform which caters its services to amateur Bitcoin traders who are baby-stepping their way into the Bitcoin economy.

All in all, these are some of the best Bitcoin website you should consider using.

Market Place

MKTPlace is a leading digital and social media platform for traders and investors. MKTPlace offers premiere resources for trading and investing education, digital resources for personal finance, news about IoT, AI, Blockchain, Business, market analysis and education resources and guides.

Launched over 5 years ago, Bitcoin has now become the world’s truly decentralized digital currency and a large financial network. And since its advent, the crypto-currency has been subject to various ups and downs in the market. The digital currency’s market value has increased up to billions of dollars from virtually nothing. Millions of dollars have been invested in this currency in the form of Bitcoin start-ups which provide users digital wallet solutions. Mentioned below is a brief summary of the currency’s price history so far:

January 3, 2009

The brilliant, anonymous Satoshi Nakamoto creates and launches the Bitcoin platform by introducing his “genesis block”, which is also Bitcoin’s first entry in the worldwide transaction register. The following is the exact text documented in the register: “The Times 03/Jan/2009 Chancellor on brink of second bailout for banks.”

January 9, 200
Satoshi launched the first Bitcoin version, the Bitcoin 0.1. He did it on the Cypherpunks mailing list. In November the previous year, Satoshi published a paper in the mailing list explaining the concept and design of the Bitcoin network.

January 11, 2009

Some people recognized the potential of the Bitcoin earlier than others and speculated that there is indeed an opportunity to make money through this revolutionary digital currency, especially for early users. According to Hal Finney, if Bitcoin proceeded to become a reserve currency, the worth of each Bitcoin could end up being $10 million.

January 12, 2009

The first transaction of the crypto-currency is initiated as Satoshi Nakamoto trades his first Bitcoins with Hal Finney.

August 15, 2009

Bitcoin proceeds to attract curious users, surely but gradually.

December 30, 2009

The slowly growing popularity and interest in Bitcoin proceeds on adding a first level up in the mining of Bitcoin. The Bitcoin network has an automated system which allows it to set different levels of difficulty pertaining to the harvesting of new Bitcoins so a fresh batch of Bitcoins is created every ten minutes. But by this date, there so many Bitcoin miners the network was forced to increase the difficulty so Bitcoins can’t be produced so rapidly.

May 18, 2010

Laszlo Hanyecz becomes the first person to ever spend his Bitcoins in a real financial transaction.  Laszlo gave 10,000 BTC for any person who would be willing to order a pizza for him. Turned out, someone ordered for pizza for him. The value of the Bitcoin at the time was $0.0025. The value of those 10,000 BTC today would be $8 million.

July 11, 2010

Slashdot, an immensely popular technology news website, takes keen interest in Bitcoin, running a story which in turn resulted in an influx of demand for the new digital currency.

November 10, 2010

The US government shuts down WikiLeaks’ (a transparency group) ability to get funds. During the same time, a random Bitcoin user suggested WikiLeaks should consider investing in Bitcoins, which further creates a fluctuation in the price of the Bitcoin due to the controversy of WikiLeaks.

December 12, 2010

Satoshi Nakamoto published his final post on the Bitcoin Forum and a couple of months after his message he completely stops contributing anything to Bitcoin. Andressen becomes the new Bitcoin lead developer. No one knows who Nakamoto really is. Some say he’s one man, some say it’s a whole group of people. Still, no one is sure.

February 9, 2011

There is a price increase in Bitcoin and it reaches parity with the USD.

April 16, 2011

Jerry Brito published what was going to be the first official review about Bitcoin targeted at the mainstream media and other organizations. The media attention considerably aids in a further hike in Bitcoin prices which in turn amps up demand for the currency.

June 8, 2011

Bitcoin increases in value and ends up rising over $30, but then abruptly loses value.

A Bitcoin users claims he was robbed by hackers and they took over 25,000 BTC which had an estimated value of $500,000 at the time. Looking at it today, those BTC would be valued at $20 million.

November 19, 2011

The Bitcoin price goes down to to $2 and by December of the same year it rises again to $5.

September 27, 2012

The Bitcoin Foundation is established. The Foundation becomes known as a semi-official safe haven for the digital currency and starts off by paying Gavin Andressen (lead developer) a monthly salary.

January 7, 2013

A Bitcoin start-up by the name of BitPay emerges, a platform which provides merchants various Bitcoin trading solutions. BitPay ends up raising $510,000.

April 10, 2013

Bitcoin prices increase substantially and jumps up to $266. At the start of the year, the price of one Bitcoin was $13.50. However, by the end of the week, the value of the currency went down to a mere $50.

November 18, 2013

The US government holds a meeting and a congressional hearing regarding Bitcoin. Two days after this hearing, another hearing is conducted by the Senate Banking Committee. The meeting and hearings are nothing more than a positive indicator. Federal regulators emphasized on what can be done to further add to the success of the digital currency and not to impede it in anyway.

November 29, 2013

Bitcoin soars to exponential levels, having a price of $1,242 per Bitcoin.

To, conclude Bitcoin is now regarded as a lucrative and smart investment tool and there are many investors who actively trade with Bitcoins and have become wealthy.

Market Place

MKTPlace is a leading digital and social media platform for traders and investors. MKTPlace offers premiere resources for trading and investing education, digital resources for personal finance, news about IoT, AI, Blockchain, Business, market analysis and education resources and guides.

Forexfactory.com is an immensely popular Forex trading website on which a majority of traders converge and trade. Forex Factory was established in March 2004. The website was uniquely designed and developed to provide traders top-notch information they can use and implement to make hefty profits. And according to Alexa, Forex Factory is the most viewed Forex trading website in the US and ranks at 1,242 in the list of most viewed websites around the globe.

And it is because of the website’s impeccable design and its uncompromising efforts to provide traders better options, top financial products, and features, which has resulted in the website’s considerable growth and success. Options like adjustable time zones, which enables Forex traders to look and gather important trading information in their own time zones. It also provides traders revolutionary features like Google-based worldwide search, gathering via member post history which makes obtaining information simpler.

Forex Factory also has a Member Impact Ranking System (MIRS) which can be instrumental in gaining opinion and in-depth analysis of various trades through different members. You would be amazed to know that all of these features and options have consistently been refined and made better for more than ten years now, providing traders the richest of trading and investing experiences.

Members of Forex Factory are considered among the most brilliant minds in trading across the globe. Their knowledge, experience and strategies are what make the Forex trading experience here an oasis compared to other platforms. Moreover, people from over the world come and trade on Forex Factory regardless of their creed or nationality which in turn promotes a productive trading environment.

It is important to understand that Forex Factory cannot be considered a social networking platform and neither is it a web portal. It’s quite simply a website designed and developed to provide state of the art features in trading and high quality trading information to all who want to participate in Forex trading.

ForexFactory for Clever Businessmen

If you are an aspiring trader or want to become a successful one, it is important you join Forex Factory. That is primarily because it is designed specifically for traders who are smart, sure of themselves and not afraid to lose. The website guides rookie traders on how to make educated trades and staying risk free at all times.

Products Offered by Forex Factory

Mentioned below are the names and brief descriptions of some of the products offered by Forex Factory:

Forums | Launched March 2004

Did you know that more traders post on ForexFactory forum than on any other platform around the world? That is because at Forex Factory forums, traders from across the world gather and talk about trades, orders and different aspects of Forex trading. Trading forums here offer a professional environment where traders bounce ideas and opinions off each other, learn, debate and compete against each other.

Market | Launched November 2009

This product consists of different applications, including charts, broker quotes, composite quotes and sessions. All these applications are powered by the Market Data System of Forexfactory.com. The Market Data Structure or MDS is a complex trading infrastructure designed to gather aggregate data from different brokers, all in real-time. By amalgamating these sets of data from different sources, the MDS allows for traders to gain access to the ‘true’ price which can be set in comparison to prices from other brokers. What this does is promote a stable trading environment in a volatile market.

Trade Explorer | Launched February 2011

The Trade Explorer application is basically a web oriented interface which enables traders to evaluate and monitor their trading output and efficiency. You can say that it is a trade measuring tool which allows you to analyze your historical trade performance. Trade Explorer also automatically integrates with the individual trader’s brokerage account to allow him access to real-time evaluative abilities.

Trade Explorer has been instrumental in launching an array of different innovative applications. It provides users automatic graphing options, synchronization, time zone control and balance/equity controls. These are all options Forex Factory provided way before any other trading platform did.

Brokers | Launched May 2012

This product is designed seasoned and experienced Forex brokers. It is a guide which explains and analyzes the various ways in which brokers and traders do their research. It gathers high quality information with precise details and real-time spreads, all combined in a single, impeccably-designed trading platform. Furthermore, the information provided in the application is regularly maintained and updated by the administrators. They ensure the content you get is fresh and usable.

The ‘Spreads’ area on the website gathers ratings from each individual broker’s account in real-time and indicates all the current spreads in the form of pips. These spreads are indicators of what ‘traditional account’ traders are viewing from their platforms without the inclusion of demo accounts.

All in all, Forexfactory.com is a wonderful and groundbreaking website which has a plethora of trading tools and features that have designed to help traders get the best out of their trades. So, the website may considerably benefit you in your trades as well.

Market Place

MKTPlace is a leading digital and social media platform for traders and investors. MKTPlace offers premiere resources for trading and investing education, digital resources for personal finance, news about IoT, AI, Blockchain, Business, market analysis and education resources and guides.

The consistent rise in the popularity of online trading and investment has been matched by the excitement of the general population displayed in using instant messengers and social media platforms. It is important to realize that both online trading, the gamification of online trading and social media function hand in hand with complete synchronicity. How? Well, the simultaneous and immediate messaging functionality of online platforms and networks allows traders and investors to discuss and exchange relevant and new information with each other right up until the second they initiate a trade.

The internet has been around for a long time now, right? You would be surprised to know that many trading enthusiasts have been using chat rooms and other forms of online messaging to stay in the loop, sharing tips, chewing over which stocks are likely to make them money, and which ones they should stay away from.

On the other hand, online brokers have started to increase their target audiences beyond the traditional day trader setting and have begun reaching into a segment of the population which hasn’t yet been exposed to the share market past the odd bank stock or managed fund investment.

In trying to interact with this huge market, online trading has started to resemble an extension of role playing games. This is due to the nature of online trading as it entails making real life decisions to change something, for example life savings, incurring loss, and increasing wealth.

There are more than half a million Australians who actively use online trading platforms to trade shares and several of those online trading platforms expect the number to increase exponentially in Australia, as well as in the US. According to a recent report by the Common Wealth Bank of Australia (CBA), it was identified that the Australian share market might grow to three million traders.

Gamification & Trading

Mike Hamm, a frequent online trader, has experienced the rise of gamification of online trading over the preceding five years. Hamm is mostly engaged in active online trading and has a trading portfolio of over $100,000. His trading experience and the knowledge that he has gained over the years has also led him to creating his own trading blog named 5000trades.com

According to Hamm, social media networking has played an instrumental role in helping people interact with the stock markets in a more reserved and shallower way. In the past, vital trading tools consisted of exclusive access into the Bloomberg terminal or in the least, subscribed access to different broker reviews and reports.

But things have changed considerably, and now most trading decisions are made online via different articles posted on Facebook and Twitter.

According to the chief executive of Bell Direct, Arnie Selvarajah, steps are being considered for the gradual gamification of the entire world of online trading. However, Arnie has his reservations pertaining to the idea of making it too easy or too game like for traders because there is a potential for clients to lose money.

Stephen Karpin, who is the general manager of equities and margin lending of CommSec, says that bringing together the tools for effective trading and infusing the power of social media to make disparate information viable to daily traders could be very useful. In attempting to harvest all the tools of the ‘trade’ together, many people who have never traded in the share market will also do so actively.

However, there is also a growing need to facilitate part time traders with valid information from the stock market. Good online trade forums should have a reliable method of rating the viability and the quality of good trading information. For example, take Hotcopper, which has a thumb up and thumb down feature, allowing traders to go through good and bad trading information.

Websites have to consistently do well in search engine rankings and have to make it to the top so that more traders could enjoy viewing credible information, basing their trade decision on the news they read.

However, it is important to realize that online trading still functions with the same rules. Trading and investment decisions are still being made based on either signals or noise in the market.

The Bottom Line

The gamification of online trading is a gradual process, but with that being said, it is also important to note that social media networking has laid a powerful foundation for it to commence and spread quickly in the near future.

Market Place

MKTPlace is a leading digital and social media platform for traders and investors. MKTPlace offers premiere resources for trading and investing education, digital resources for personal finance, news about IoT, AI, Blockchain, Business, market analysis and education resources and guides.