TD Ameritrade's New Mobile App Scans for Investment Opportunities

TD Ameritrade launched Snapstock -- a new update to its mobile app that allows investors to scan any product barcode to find out detailed information about the publicly traded company that produces the product, while they are shopping.

Corporate Insight's Senior Analyst Dan Wiegand said the tool allows consumers to explore investment opportunities with their smartphones during the everyday shopping experience.

“With the Snapstock tool on TD Ameritrade’s iPhone and Android apps, clients can scan a product’s bar code with their phone’s camera and then view a quote for the company or add the company’s symbol to a watch list,” says Wiegand, regarding the announcement. “This tool is an innovative new way to make the mobile channel a driver of investment research and trading,” added Wigand who heads the firms mobile research practice.

According to the company’s release, Snapstock empowers consumers to utilize the information they already know (this is a great product) to consider investment opportunities in the company that produces the product.

"Investors tend to use our mobile trading platforms more for opening transactions than for closing ones," commented Nicole Sherrod, managing director of TD Ameritrade's Trader Group. "Because of this fact, we sought to integrate innovative new features which help support our investors' desire to always be on the lookout for investment opportunities no matter where they are -- the drugstore, the mall, or the market."

Snapstock is embedded in the latest version of TD Ameritrade Mobile, which is available to TD Ameritrade clients through both the Apple app store and Android Market.

To use TD Ameritrade Mobile's Snapstock, clients simply: -- Use their phone's camera to invoke the Snapstock scanning software and with one tap, scan a product UPC Barcode. Snapstock will then return the quote detail for the ticker symbol if the company is publicly traded. -- Either place a trade on the stock or add it to a watch list. Clients can also choose to view news, Level II, Charts or Option Chains for the security.

"Retail investors are the primary consumers of products produced by companies with a high likelihood of capital appreciation," Sherrod continued. "As such, they are at the forefront of the retail marketplace. They are well positioned to be at the leading edge of discovering the next big retail trading opportunity -- potentially more so even than Wall Street. This new product integration helps investors take advantage of that edge."

Ivy is Editor-at-Large for Advanced Trading and Wall Street & Technology. Ivy is responsible for writing in-depth feature articles, daily blogs and news articles with a focus on automated trading in the capital markets. As an industry expert, Ivy has reported on a myriad ... View Full Bio