Stock Trading Apps have replaced the traditional open outcry method and allowed investors to trade in the stock market in a modern digital way. Now, with a Stock Trading app development, any investor can buy or sell stocks anytime from anywhere in the world.
The market operates during fixed times. Still, stock trading apps have given the advantage of placing trade orders anytime, unlike in times when people had to wait for the market to open.
This scenario has encouraged many people to use stock trading mobile applications to invest in leading stock markets like the New York Stock Exchange, Nasdaq, Shanghai Stock Exchange, etc.
But, have you ever wondered how these applications are built? In this guide, we will reveal the complete stock trading app development process, its working, the technology stack, and more. Thus, keep reading the blog further to gain useful insights for developing a stock trading mobile application.
Stock Trading Applications: Latest Market Statistics
Let’s explore the latest statistics showing the growth of the stock market investing trend using mobile applications.
Source: Grand View Research
- The market size of the stock trading app was worth $16266.1 million in 2023, and it is projected to be valued at $ 110624.4 million by 2033.
- The stock trading and investment application market is anticipated to grow at a CAGR of 19% from 2023 to 2032.
- North America is the leading player in the global stock trading apps industry.
- Robinhood, a popular stock trading mobile application, has registered an increased total net revenue of $467 million.
These numbers clearly show that the trading app development market will continue to grow in the coming years. Thus, it is profitable to develop a custom stock buying and selling platform tailored to your needs.
How Does Stock Trading Apps Work?
Stock trading apps act as an intermediary between the investors and the market to facilitate the buying and selling of stocks digitally, against a commission on successful trades.
These applications have eliminated the traditional outcry method that investors used to implement in earlier times. Stock trading app developers integrate advanced features into the app, compliant with guidelines of the regulatory bodies, that enhance the users’ trading experience.
Nowadays, investors can use stock trading mobile apps to buy or sell stocks, check portfolios, evaluate market trends, stock price rise or downfall, maintain their demat accounts, and more.
Moreover, some progressive stock trading platforms also provide top news and educational materials to allow new investors to make informed decision-making.
So, now that you know the workings of stock trading mobility solutions, let’s proceed to its development process.
How to Develop a Stock Trading Mobile Application?
Here is your comprehensive guide to Trading app development in detail.
- Pre-Development Research
Before beginning the development phase of your stock trading mobile application, it is advisable to research various factors that will affect the further development of the stock trading app.
This includes market trends, competitor analysis, government and other regulatory guidelines, top fintech app development companies to develop your app, and more.
- Define Your Requirements
After researching, you can define your requirements for Stock Trading app development. Consulting your fintech mobile app development team, you can decide the type of app you want to build – Native, Cross-platform, or Progressive Web App.
Also, you can decide about the programming languages, mobile app development frameworks to use, databases, features and functionalities, third-party APIs, and more.
- Design Your Stock Trading Mobile App
By teaming up with your designers, create a compelling and sophisticated wireframe of your stock market app. Wireframe is the foundation of your development process.
Design the user interface, icons, layouts, and functionalities, and move forward to the development phase of the Stock Trading app.
- Develop Your Stock Trading Application
Begin the development process of your Stock Trading mobile application with dedicated stock market app developers. We advise you to build an MVP (minimum viable product) before going for the final development, to reduce the risks, faster development process, and save time and resources.
Develop the front end and back end of your stock trading mobile application. You can use the agile development process to build your Stock Trading mobile application to promote flexibility and collaboration during the development.
- Integrate Third-Party APIs
Integrate third-party APIs (application programming interfaces) to add features and functionalities to your stock trading application.
Moreover, you can leverage cutting-edge technologies, such as Artificial Intelligence, Blockchain, Cloud, and Algorithm Trading functionalities to make your application more advanced and sophisticated and make it stand out from others.
Below are a few common APIs you can add to your app.
- Alpha Vantage – For providing financial market data, such as stock quotes, technical indicators, and historical data.
- Interactive Brokers (IB)- For enabling order execution and portfolio management.
- ChartIQ and Highcharts – To offer interactive financial charts and technical analysis tools in the app.
- Riskalyze – To manage risks related to the volatility of the stock markets.
- Stripe – For secure payment processing and managing transactions in the stock trading mobile application.
These are only recommendations for the APIs. You can choose different APIs that suit your business requirements the best.
- Implement Security Measures
Data Security is the major concern of users that discourages them from using newly launched e-trading apps. Also, cyberattacks are one of the biggest reasons most fintech companies worry about.
Thus, it is crucial to integrate high-end security measures to keep your user’s financial data safe from unauthorized access. You can opt for the Blockchain app development approach to benefit from the security Blockchain provides.
Also, you can implement additional measures for stock market app development, such as AI-powered data encryption, transaction tokenization, SSL/TLS protocols, biometric authentication, and more, to win the trust of your users and investors.
- Testing
After implementing the APIs, test your stock trading mobile app on various platforms, such as Android, iOS, Windows, etc., and devices, such as mobiles, tablets, and desktops.
You can also release the Beta version of the Stock Trading app for testing and quality control. You can gather user feedback and make necessary changes to your application accordingly.
- Deploy Your Stock Trading App
After testing and fixing bugs, launch your Stock Trading application on the Google Play Store and App Store. Also, update the application regularly to keep it relevant in the market for a long time.
Using this Stock Trading mobile app development procedure, you can build a custom application for stock trading, tailored to your specific requirements. Read further to explore the advanced features you can integrate into your Stock Trading application.
Advanced Features to Integrate into Stock Trading Application
In stock trading apps, features play a major role in enhancing the trading experience of the users. Therefore, here are some features you can add to your Stock trading application.
| Feature | Benefits |
| AI-Powered Market Analytics and Recommendations | The potential of AI to enhance market insights and trend predictions based on historical data and real-time market conditions. Also, AI provides custom investment options tailored to user’s preferences and risk tolerance. |
| Transaction Channels and History enabled with Blockchain | Increase the security of Stock trading transactions with Blockchain to win user’s trust. Moreover, automate the execution of stock trades and settlements with Smart Contracts to reduce the chances of fraud. |
| Automated Portfolio Management | Allow your users to rebalance their portfolios based on frequent market changes and user-defined investment strategies. |
| Real-Time Sentiment Analysis | Analyze news sentiment to evaluate market sentiment and help your users make informed investment decisions. Also, help them with first mover advantage based on market sentiments. |
| Advanced Analytics and Risk Management with Quantum Computing | Enable your users to process financial data at unparalleled speeds, risk analysis, and solve complex optimization problems in real-time. |
| AI-based KYC Processes | Enable Know Your Customer (KYC) processes with AI to verify user’s documents efficiently. |
| Cloud-Based Storage | Save your users’ data on the Cloud, and provide them the luxury to access it from any device anytime. |
| Augmented Reality- enabled Interactive visualization | Empower user experience by integrating Augmented Reality and allowing your users to view market trends and stock data in an immersive way. |
| Generative AI-enabled Chatbots | Address your users’ queries 24/7 using Generative AI-powered Chatbots, which answer frequently asked questions and learn the context of the query using machine learning capabilities. |
So, these are the advanced features powered by cutting-edge technologies to empower your Stock Trading app’s functionalities and provide your users with an improved user experience.
Technology Stack for Stock Trading App Development
To develop an intuitive Stock Trading app, you must use the best tools, frameworks, and libraries. Hence, we have given a technology stack to build a custom Stock Trading mobile application.
| Purpose | Technology Stack |
| Mobile App Development | React Native, Flutter, Swift (iOS), Kotlin (Android) |
| Frontend Development | React, Angular, Vue.js |
| Backend Development | Node, Django, Flask, Ruby on Rails, Express.js |
| Real-time Data Streaming | WebSocket, Apache Kafka, RabbitMQ |
| Server-Side Scripting | Node.js, Python, Ruby, Java |
| Market Data Feeds | Alpha Vantage, IEX Cloud, Yahoo Finance API |
| Payment Gateway | Stripe, PayPal, Square |
| Security | SSL/TLS, OAuth, JWT, Two-Factor Authentication |
| DevOps and CI/CD | Docker, Kubernetes, Jenkins, GitLab CI |
| Authentication and Authorization | OAuth 2.0, JWT (JSON Web Tokens), OpenID Connect |
| Communication and Messaging | Twilio (SMS), Push Notifications |
| Algorithmic Trading | Python (using libraries like NumPy, Pandas, and TensorFlow) |
| API Integration | RESTful APIs, GraphQL |
| Cloud Hosting | AWS, Azure, Google Cloud Platform |
| Database | PostgreSQL, MySQL, MongoDB, Redis, Cassandra |
We have mentioned the basic technology stack. If required, you can consult with fintech app developers and choose other technologies for stock market app development, customized to your specific business needs.
How Stock Trading Mobile Applications Make Money?
Now that you know how to develop a stock trading application for mobiles, tablets, and other platforms, you must be curious about the return on investment you make in developing your application.
Being a business, you can generate several revenue sources from mobile applications for stock trading by leveraging the following monetizing practices:
- Commissions
The major monetizing practice for stock trading mobile applications is charging a percentage of the total trade amount as a commission for every transaction by the users. Remember to keep it minimal yet justified to attract users.
Also, you can offer free trading up to a certain amount, and charge a commission beyond it.
- Freemium
Another revenue-generating strategy for stock trading applications is to leverage a Freemium option. In freemium, you offer users to use the application with basic features for free whereas they need to pay to access advanced features of the stock market app.
- In-App Advertisements
In-app advertisements are one of the commonly used monetizing strategies when it comes to stock trading apps. Hence, you can run advertisements for other brands in your application and charge them for the same.
However, it is important to keep in mind that ads popping on the app interface can also ruin the user experience, thus, try to keep it minimal.
- Exclusive Content
Using this strategy, you can charge your users with monthly, quarterly, or yearly subscriptions to provide them with exclusive content, such as the company’s financials, in-depth research material, advanced analytics, expert tips and tutorials for trading, and more.
Leveraging these stock trading app monetizing strategies, you can generate additional revenue and ensure profitable growth.
Best Stock Trading Mobile Applications
Below are some popular stock market mobile applications available in the market:
- Robinhood
Robinhood is a popular stock trading application that allows users to invest and trade in stocks, options, Exchange-Traded Funds (ETFs), and more, without any commission fees.
The majority of revenue the Robinhood app generates is from the system, called Payment for Order Flow.
- E-Trade
E-Trade is an intuitive mobile application for stock trading and investment. It is one of the best options for investors and other stakeholders, looking to invest and trade in the stock market.
Apart from stocks, users can also use the E-Trade app to invest in mutual funds, bonds, futures and options, ETFs, and others.
- Schwab Mobile
Schwab Mobile is another well-known stock trading and investment app, owned by the Charles Schwab Corporation. The mobile app is used for buying and selling stocks, mutual funds, options, and more, using user-friendly charts, graphics, analytics, etc.
- Ally Invest
Ally Invest is the leading stock trading, investment, and banking application that allows users to trade and invest in the stock market. The mobile app also offers detailed research and market analysis tools to support all types of investment strategies.
- Merrill Edge
Owned by Bank of America, Merrill Edge is a popular e-trading mobile app, used for a wide range of investment and trading purposes, including stock trading and investment in mutual funds and futures and options.
Along with trading, users can also manage portfolios and learn more about finance by accessing the learning resources available in the Merrill Edge mobile application.
So, these are the top Stock trading and investment mobile applications in the market.
Summing Up
Stock Trading mobile applications have provided extraordinary opportunities for investors to trade and invest in stock markets on the go. Using these digital platforms, anyone can invest in stocks, mutual funds, futures and options, etc, from anywhere in the world, at any time.
Additionally, with the evolutions of technologies, these stock trading mobile apps are becoming more advanced. Now, stock market app developers are integrating cutting-edge technologies, such as AI, Blockchain, Machine Learning, Predictive Analytics, and more, to enhance users’ stock trading experience and transform the overall stock market sector.
Hence, if you want to develop a custom stock trading mobile app, reach out to Quytech, the leading stock trading app development company in India. We innovate digital fintech products, such as Stock trading apps, fintech software and platforms, crypto-trading applications, etc., tailored to our client’s specific requirements. Explore our portfolio for more details.
By partnering up with Quytech, you will get access to:
- In-depth consultations from Fintech industry experts.
- Unmatched digital product development experience.
- High-end features and functionalities to enhance user experience and make your product stand out.
- Cutting-edge technology integration to upgrade your app’s functionalities.
- Post-development support and maintenance services.
- The 100% client satisfaction.
So, what are you waiting for? Reach out to our team today and let’s develop a Stock Trading app that redefines the trading experience of your users.