Stephen Holiday

Mobile Investor

Completed - Buy, Sell and Research stocks via SMS

##What is it?## In 2007, I was involved in a stock trading competition called Investors of Tomorrow. The competition had an online site where I could login and make trades. In order to stay ahead of the competition I wrote a tool that would send me SMS messages to my cell phone throughout the day. It would update me on stock changes and news relating to the stocks. I could then text back and make trades. This allowed me to be ahead of the curve while in class during the day.

##When## The work started in September 2007 and worked successfully until the end of the competition.

##Technology##

  • I used PHP to login to the site to make trades as it was a quick way to implement the script.
  • To send and receive the text messages, I used twitter’s api with two accounts, one for the tool and one for me to interface with.

##Success?## It worked consistently and throughout the competition I added features throughout the competition.

##Improvements## If I were to implement it again, I would have used something other then text messages. Perhaps a BlackBerry app for a better interface for trading.