Investors flock to DIY trading platforms

Robert Francis, managing director of forex trading platform easyMarkets, said investors are increasingly looking to DIY trading platforms to achieve "better returns".

Speaking to ifa sister title Adviser Innovation, Mr Francis pointed out that investors are "exploring other avenues" such as DIY trading platforms and moving away from stockbrokers and advisers.

The platform offers investors both cost efficiency and general advice, he said.

"Before a client trades with us we actually want to sit down with them and discuss trading itself," he explained. "The advice element is not so much in terms of [what to buy], [but] what we're doing is talking about risk management and money management. That's the advice we try and give clients."

Mr Francis said easyMarkets places emphasis on risk management in an effort to ensure investors have strategies in place to preserve capital.

"It's very important for us to give our clients as much information as possible, have the resources to speak to somebody... to talk about risk management [and] money management," he said.

The platform offers a stop loss function, whereby an investor sets a price which determines the maximum amount of capital they are willing to lose.

easyMarkets trading desk manager Andreas Tjahja added that the company advises investors to only risk 2 to 5 per cent of their capital per each trade idea.

"[This is] to ensure preservation of capital and appreciating the probabilistic nature of each trade idea/forecast," said Mr Tjahja.

easyMarkets currently offers access to forex, indices and soft commodities, but will offer CFDs on shares in the second half of 2016.

A mobile app is set to be launched in the same period, Mr Francis added.