Year of the Tiger Broker: Now Aussies can trade stocks and options 24/7, cheaper, faster, sharper
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Australia’s newest mobile share trading platform, Tiger Trade Australia, is all set to go live – and it’s positioned to undercut rivals in both price and technological capabilities.
The Nasdaq-listed group Tiger Brokers is making its official entrance into the Australian retail share market this week with the launch of its proprietary trading app Tiger Trade, offering zero brokerage on both US stocks and ASX share for 3 months.*
Welcome gifts such as free Apple shares and stock vouchers are also leveraged as ways to attract news users in an increasingly crowded market.**
Tiger Brokers Australia is led by Singapore-headquartered UP Fintech, the NASDAQ-listed (TIGR) Tiger Brokers – boasting a US$750 million market cap and some ~9 million users globally.
Tiger Australia will offer Aussie investors the ability to trade on the ASX, in Wall Street, across the US, Hong Kong equities, and ETFs along with US options at Tiger Trade.
By opening access to a broader global market with more advanced tools and order types, the technology-driven retail broker is expected to grow rapidly in Australia.
Chief Strategy Officer Michael McCarthy told Stockhead Tiger Brokers was looking to replicate its successful launch in Singapore two years ago.
“At one stage we were the fastest growing broker platform in Singapore and the take up there suggests the sort of features we are bringing to Australia are likely to get a good reception,” he said.
Advantage in tech
McCarthy said Tiger Brokers technology brings an undeniable competitive edge.
“Tiger Technology is where we have real strength which offers a stable and reliable environment for trading but a huge advantage to active investors,” he said.
A lot of the online brokers in Australia are still using technology developed up to two decades ago and the reason for that is they’re big institutions tied to their legacy IT systems.
“We have a very strong team of developers and our tech is our secret weapon – so just as we are looking at Web3 – we are looking at Fintech3. ”
Latest tech renewed, refreshed every fortnight
“But we’ve learned you need to constantly update your tech and our app is updated every two weeks to respond to our customers and what they are looking to do with their portfolios and in the market. “
He said their technology philosophy revolves around responding to customer needs and what they are wanting to do with their portfolios and in their market.
“It’s not just about bug fixing which of course is a big part of reliability and stability,” he said.
Trade US stocks throughout US trading day
Tiger Trade offers extended hours trading, which includes pre-market and after-hours sessions for the US shares, helping investors seize every opportunity.
“At the moment we are going through the US quarterly reporting season and often see companies reporting after market and their share price can move substantially in that after-market stage,” McCarthy said.
“A lot of local brokers can’t offer participation in that after-market trade, so this is one practical example of our technology advantage.”
Another advantage of Tiger Trade is being able to trade the US options market in real time, along with providing real time data so investors can make informed decisions.
Analysis and education
McCarthy said Tiger Brokers was focused on educating and informing clients on their investing journey.
Fundamental analysis of individual companies, including the company’s cash position, operating capacity and balance sheet strength aims to assist investors better understand companies they are considering buying.
Financial information and ratios, as well as level 2 market data shows depth of orders, including quantities at each individual bid and ask to help investors to stay on top of the market.
And if investors aren’t ready to take the plunge, McCarthy said Tiger Trade has demonstration accounts, where investors can practice their investing skills and test their strategies.
“We see educational material as just as important as the technical and fundamental analysis we provide,” he said.
“That ability to grow on the journey as an investor and become more successful we think is just so important and particularly for those newer to the market.”
Sharing your investor experience
Tiger Trade also offers a community forum, which has been very popular in international markets for investors to share their experience, discuss markets and trades.
“Given we have a great mix of investors across our platform from those who just started trading in the last 12 months to those trading with institutions like hedge funds, the conversations within our community area can be quite sophisticated and a good source of market information,” he said.
“The engagement in the forum is also a product of our tech with almost every broking platform having a comment section but active discussion around the market is much less common.
“Enabling users to rate, recommend or share an idea seems like a small feature but it’s the difference between a useful community forum and one that’s possibly not.”
Not concerned by competition
McCarthy said he was not concerned about the growing competition in Australia’s online brokerage sector and the company was concentrating on just running its own race.
“There’s been a lot of focus and headlines on the newer entrants into the Australian market but a lot of trading volume is still handled by older legacy brokers like Commsec and CMC Markets,” McCarthy said.
He said because Australia is a stable trading environment and has an overall attractive economy Tiger Brokers sees potential for other new entrants to come into the Australian market.
“They’re very different offerings in many ways one of the advantages is consumers are getting more choice but given the advantage of our technology we think the answer for a lot of investors locally will be Tiger Brokers and Tiger Trade.
Growth of retail investors
McCarthy said the popularity of equity markets among retail investors was continuing to grow, and the company was focused on opening the market to everybody.
“Whether you’re in retirement and trading your self-managed super fund holdings or just starting out on your investing journey our platform can offer something to investors at every level,” he said.
McCarthy said there’s no doubt one of the big trends in share market over recent decades has been the increasing participation of retail investors directly into the market.
“That’s a long-term trend which is not going anywhere and has accelerated in the past couple of years since the COVID-19 pandemic,” he said.
Tiger Brokers is particularly taking aim at younger investors, starting their investing journey.
“We have a whole new cohort of younger traders coming through aged between 18 and 35 which we know we can add real value for – providing easy access to markets with the right, incredibly useful tool at Tiger Trade,” McCarthy said.
Find out more about Tiger Brokers here.
*Pass through fees apply, **subject to promotion deposit minimums.
