Life is busy. If you’re investing or managing your savings, there’s no reason you can’t, in a fairly short space of time, build an entire portfolio. Just look what has been happening on the investment market lately: “Tesla buys $1.5bn in bitcoin, pushing price to new high”, “GameStop shares’ costs soar over Reddit and Mask’s support”. Which is a great market rocking, benefiting those, who got the time and the inclination. If you don’t, though, the next best thing is to choose the right platform for you.
Investment platforms can be a confusing and frustrating place. Most of the time you are never completely clear on how you will be invested and who will be managing your money. This is why it is important to choose the right platform for you and ensure you fully understand how the fund manager will be invested. In fact, if you are a newbie you may be very impressed just how far trading software may go in its automation. But there is also a manual part of the deal: It is very important to understand what fund managers you are investing with and how you can influence the funds they are invested in.
For example if you are unhappy with a fund manager you can ask for your money back. Most of the time you are not able to get your money back however you can discuss the manager and their investments with other investors in your financial network to try and create a fund that is more suitable to your own requirements.
What is a good investment platform?
Let’s explore this from the point of view of three features which some investment platforms are still missing…
A constructive investment performance feedback structure
Assuming you’re given a good measure of freedom to effectively choose exactly what to invest in and how much to invest, many investment platforms fall short in providing some constructive, meaningful feedback their clients can really use to make better decisions. We know all too well that the platforms make their money more through the fees charged than via any credibility built-up offering direct investment advice, but it would be nice if you could ring up your history and be able to formulate some kind of sensible picture of how good or bad your choices were.
Currently anything close to what is performance feedback pretty much just relays your activity data back to you, and/or reports on publically available data, like the current quarter profit reports of some assets you can invest in via that platform.
Inclusive accessibility
At the end of the day investment platforms can say all they want, but if I want to invest in certain instruments, securities, etc, am I able to do so? Many investment platforms lack this type of inclusive accessibility. I shouldn’t have to jump ship to another platform for some exposure on an asset the one I’m using doesn’t have on offer, for instance…
Effective technical support
The last thing I want to hear is the voice of an A.I. bot, for instance, when I have an issue such as a technical one which caused a delay in the crediting of my account balance, following a deposit, etc. Investment platforms generally lack effective technical support, offered by knowledgeable support staff that at the very least knows a thing or two about the industry they’re effectively offering technical support services for.