The Perfect Platform for Active Traders

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If you’re a trader, then you’ve probably heard about how the Robinhood and Coinbase trading platforms have radically changed the stock and crypto market landscapes in recent years. But how do you know if those popular platforms are necessarily the right ones for you to use?

Ryan Ruscett believes that experienced traders have more elaborate platform needs than beginners do. So he’s set out to build the perfect online trading platform for those mid-level traders who want help taking their trading to the next level.  

In 2021, Ruscett was named as President of SmartTrader, a comprehensive charting and analysis platform for the stock, forex and cryptocurrency markets. He also heads SmartTrader Labs, a U.S.-based fintech software development company. Ruscett had previously served as the Chief Technology Officer for SmartTrader’s sister company Market Traders Institute.

We asked Ruscett to discuss why investors should consider opening a SmartTrader account, how trading has evolved recently, and which traders would benefit the most from SmartTrader’s advanced tools.

What differentiates SmartTrader from other trading platforms?

Ruscett: One of the first things you have to ask yourself as a trader is “Why should I use SmartTrader?” There are a million trading platforms out there that you can use. Most of the coolest features that SmartTrader has are proprietary SmartTools and SmartScripts. Every SmartTool that we have was developed by an analyst at Market Traders Institute.

So one of the biggest reasons why you’d want to be on SmartTrader is because the SmartTools can make trading easier for you. They can help you better understand it without having to know all the market nuances.

Another unique feature we have is our automated SmartScripts that can actually make trades for you. Most other platforms use automated scripts for analysis only, while SmartScripts will do the analysis for you and place your trades based on a set of criteria the user inputs.

It’s much easier for platform providers just to build scripts that analyze the markets, tell you when to trade, and give you alerts than it is to build ones that actually make those trades for you. We think that is a major advantage for SmartTrader users.

So when you choose our platform it’s probably because of our advanced technology or because SmartTrader lets you connect to any of over 100 different brokers.

What new trends are changing how people trade the markets?

Ruscett:  The way that trading is evolving has a lot to do with the fact now there are two kinds of traders. You have to be cognizant of both types. First, there are the people trading the meme stocks like Reddit, AMC and GameStop.

You’ve got all of these people just thinking they’re going to get rich fast off something. They’re following meme stocks and trading with low dollar stocks to try to make fast money. That’s a very millennial, Gen Y or Gen Z type approach, right? Buy now for short term gain.

But then you’ve got the cryptocurrencies market. There are people who have made millions of dollars off of these things. And everybody trading cryptos has this dream of, “I’m going to buy cryptos and it’s going to be great. I’m going to make all this money.”

So it’s mostly become this market of buy and hold investors. But then traders don’t hold it for long enough as they should have. Everybody wants to sell at the top but they usually don’t have the patience to do so.

Imagine if you bought Bitcoin at 12 cents and watched it rise to about $60,000 today. Most people just settle for a quick profit and then they’re done with the market. I think the psychology of trading is a huge issue that’s just going crazy right now.

There are a lot of people not wanting to miss out on the crypto market even though crypto prices are still high. And so crypto trading is huge, but it’s also attracting this “I want to get rich quick” crowd. It’s turning very much into a day trader type of mindset. But crypto trading is so unpredictable that there’s just no way anybody can follow certain ones if you want to get involved. It’s very difficult to do that.

Which types of traders is SmartTrader best geared for?

Ruscett: We believe that intermediate traders are the ones most likely to use our platform. I wouldn’t necessarily compare SmartTrader to Robinhood or Coinbase. Robinhood doesn’t have technical charts. Coinbase doesn’t have charts. They just have a price chart for the graph. They don’t have any drawing or analytic tools.

Those types of platforms just want you to buy something, put in money and go. They’re not really meant for the intermediate trader. They’re meant for young traders with low dollar accounts.

Explain how SmartTrader is designed to help active traders.

Ruscett:  We want to specialize in helping that intermediate level trader who wants to learn to become a professional or full-time trader. That’s the journey that we’re trying to build with these clients. So that’s why we’re working hard to make the SmartTrader platform easier to understand for our users.

I want people to be able to come into SmartTrader, figure out quickly how to place trades, connect to their brokers and be able to trade anytime because that’s all they want to do. I want to offer first class service to that type of client. I care highly about the people who want the best mid level trading experience.

If you think about SmartTrader, we’re trying to be like the Mercedes-Benz of trading platforms. We’ve got a marketplace with awesome tools and strategies that you can purchase to use immediately. We’ve got advanced charts with all these great drawing tools, candlestick charts, everything an active trader would need. And so we’re not necessarily trying to go after meme stock traders.

I’m not looking for people who just want to buy and hold investments forever. We’re actually targeting the active trader — the person who wants to learn how to trade more, wants to use everything that they can to hedge their bets so that they can make the best trades possible. That’s the user market we’re going to help most.

What do you hope that users will learn when they join SmartTrader?

Ruscett: Our goal is helping traders from young to old who are not skilled and taking them to a highly skilled level. We’re making our platform easier for them to use, but then also providing those tools they need for that next level experience. But even more importantly, we want to be able to provide them an easy way to get the best trading education to learn how to become successful traders. 

I want you to come on our platform and say, “Oh, I love this stuff. What’s this? I can go to this webinar that’s going to teach me how to use our trading room for only $100. Awesome. I’m going to do it.” 

I want to make it easy for traders to build their knowledge. We will provide them that education through other third-party businesses to help somebody start trading from the ground up. However, we do focus on traders who have some experience in the market because otherwise it can be a very overwhelming process.

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