Dom Davis (The Blog)

My iPhone is many things to me, the hub of my mobile digital world. What with all the G’s (3G, EDGE, GPRS, GPS, 802.11g and gyroscope) and the multitude of apps it can do just about anything. Watch films and TV programs? Check. Listen to music? Check. Radio? Check. Read books? Check. Communicate with people via email, facebook, twitter, text and IM? Check. Surf the web? Check. Read books? Check. Play games? Check. Eat money through hardware costs, monthly subscription and the endless handing over of money to Apple (and now Amazon) for new music, films, apps and books? Check, check and check. I dread to think how much money I’ve handed over to Steve, either directly or via o2.

Today that changed. IG Index, who to my mind do the bast spread betting platform bar none¹ released their iPhone app. IG have had a mobile site for their spread betting platform for ages now, even one that’s formatted for the iPhone, but I’ve always found it a bit clunky and the charts (which are a must for the type of trading I do) were buggy and unreliable. The new iPhone app, on the other hand, is very slick, execution appears to be reasonably fast that the orders appear to be executed at the price you hit the button, not the price it’s at when the server finally gets the instruction. The last thing you want is a slow GPRS connection turning your big fat profit into a loss.

A quick check of the forex markets (24 hour, move fast, good for a quick test of anything with small stakes and tights stops and limits) and I spotted EUR/USD was on the up, rallying from a small retracement. 50p a point, stop at 20 points (maximum loss would be £20), limit at 2 points (maximum gain £1) and every intention of bailing the instant I struck a profit or the instant it looked like the trade was going south. A punt, yes, but as punts go not a massively risky one, not over these time scales with the entry and exit points. Worst case I loose connection, the app crashes, or some other disaster, the trade goes wrong and I lose a tenner. Best case the same as before but I get a quid. Actual result: I netted 35p.

The reason why I said the app ‘appears’ to execute at the price you hit the button is because at 40p I hit ‘sell’. Nothing happened. A quick look at the UI and I spotted the close trade button. I hit that instead (35p), a dialogue comes up telling me it’s closing the trade (20p) and the little spinney ‘loading’ icon (15p) followed by a confirmation (10p). Total time to close the trade was about 5 seconds (which is a VERY long time in forex) but a quick check of my account showed I was 35p up.

So there you have it, the iPhone is no longer a drain on the resources. Armed with my new app, a bit of luck and a following wind I might even cover the cost of 3 iPhones (original, 3G and iPhone 4), the GPS dock, the headphones, the mic attactchment, the docks, the stipend to o2 to use their mobile network paid every month since November 2007, the 99p or whatever it is I’ve paid for each and every song I’ve downloaded from the ITMS (and there’s been a lot) and the frightening number of apps I’ve bought (and lets not forget the $15 or so spent on books thus far). Well, maybe not cover, but put a large dent in… well a dent… OK, well 24p more and I can get myself a cheap game for free

¹ Yes, I know the ProSpreads platform can do lots of fun advanced thingies but I defy anyone who doesn’t have a couple of years knowledge to even understand how it’s used. The only thing all the extra bells, knobs and whistles did for me was allow me to blow my £50,000 trial account in half the time it would have otherwise.

I should probably point out that Spread Betting is a leveraged product and the value of your investment can far exceed your original stake. It’s a wonderful way of throwing away money, even if you do know what you’re doing and probably not recommended for those who don’t know what they’re doing. That said, if you really, really want to give it a go let me know because if you sign up for an IG Index account recommended by me I get a bottle of champagne or something. You might also get some money in your account, I can’t remember, all I know for sure is I get goodies if you then go and make a few trades.