| 19 November 2009

Online broker OptionsHouse just rolled a new mobile trading application for active investors. The service has been tested on the iPhone, Android, Pre and Blackberry platforms.

Customers can access their accounts through the mobile platform and trade stocks, options and ETFs. Advanced orders (such as one-cancels-other) are not yet available via the mobile platform.

Users can also view the following:

• Detailed Balances
• Positions
• Order Status Trading
• Stock Quotes and Research (charts, options, fundamentals, financials)
• Symbol Look-up
• Watchlists

Mobile applications have been gaining favor among active investors. We have expressed some consternation with mobile applications -- not so much with remote access to orders and information but how investors might use mobile applications to make trading decisions. But there's no stopping the technology, which is clearly gaining ground. Fidelity reported triple-digit growth in its mobile trades and E*TRADE Financial Corporation (ETFC) recently recorded two million log-ins on the Blackberry. But we did find it intersting to note that a recent Scottrade survey indicated that mobile services appear to be more important to Generation Y investors.

Despite being around for a decade the mobile trading landscape is still just forming and some applications are more sophisitcated than others. While most mobile products simply use a browser interface, optionsXpress (OXPS) took the mobile experience a step further, allowing users to download an application for not only the iPhone and the Blackberry but also for Windows Mobile and Android devices. The downloadable application gives access to the more sophisticated tools available to OXPS Web or desktop users, such as options chains and "The Dragon," a stock screening tool.

TD Ameritrade's (AMTD) thinkorswim group has long offered a mobile trading application to its clients. They recently rolled a sophisticated iPhone application that's capable of handling advanced orders and live streaming audio. The TOS application is available to anyone, not just account holders, and the paperMony application is enable to allow non-account holders to test the platform with a few practice trades.

OptionsHouse is backed by Peak 6 which also owns ONN.tv and WeSeed. As such, we anticipate the company to continue to wokr on its mobile platform as appropriate demand for the product increases.