SparkFin — Investing for the Modern Age

This week we talk with Jason Pang of SparkFin. Listen to the podcast above!

News spreads in many formats these days. Gone are the days of the newspaper and research articles. We live in an age where data is king; you can quickly get information from social networks such as Twitter and Facebook as soon as it is announced. It is estimated that 500 million tweets get sent every day. With all this data, what are you doing to utilize it?

Financial Technology (FinTech) has been an exciting sector with the spread of social data. New ways of researching and trading give amateur traders the ability to keep up with the professionals. Today we explore SparkFin, an app that allows amateurs, as well as experts, to view and research stocks, as well as see how stocks are performing and what the experts are recommending.

Company Facts

Founded: Apr. 2015
 URL: http://www.sparkfin.com/

Founder Info

Founder:
 Jason Pang (CEO)
 Tom Walpole (CTO)
 Howard Lindzon

Technology

Platform:
 iOS
 Web Soon
 Development Tools:
 Nginx
 Python/Django
 Postgres DB
 Amazon Linux
 Restful API

SparkFin

Today’s podcast gives us the opportunity to talk with Jason Pang, the CEO of SparkFin. The idea formed from a conversation between Howard Lindzon and Jason discussing how difficult it was to find simple stock traits, such as highs, lows, ratios, etc. The idea continued to form and SparkFin now provides users with a platform where they can learn about the market, see what experts are talking about (and the stocks they are trading), and create a watch list for other users to follow.

The app, which is currently available on iOS and launching on web shortly, provides a clean and easy to use interface allowing users to easily navigate from screen to screen. Once logged in, you are provided with a plethora of information, from user curated stock lists to suggested stocks in which you may be interested. There is a ton to do from within the app and plenty of learning opportunities here. While there are a number of apps out there helping you learn about the stock market, the format in which SparkFin delivers information is easy to navigate and digest.

There are a number of improvements that Jason discussed on the podcast, including directly linking into the APIs provided by brokerages, allowing you to trade directly from the platform. That would ensure that SparkFin is the single platform, allowing you to perform research, see what others are trading, and make the trade without ever leaving SparkFin.

For any investor, new or old, I recommend giving SparkFin a try; you can check them out today at www.sparkfin.com.