http://www.thesundaytimes.co.uk/sto/business/money/investments/article1310208.ece

Now’s your big chance to be a currency trader

Bruce Millar

ARMCHAIR investors can try their luck as currency traders using a new smartphone app – and win cash for correctly forecasting market price movements.

The free app, called Gain, will use players’ predictions to make real bets on the currency markets, and share the profits through a prize fund.

It is the brainchild of Justin Short, a former electronic trading strategist with Merrill Lynch in Tokyo. His company, Nous, aims to use the predictions made by tens of thousands of players to create a market-beating investment fund.

Short predicts prizes totalling $100m (£64m) could be awarded over 10 years. Nearly 3,000 people have so far signed up to the app.

They are earning an average of $5 week, but highly skilled individuals could earn up to $10,000 in 2014 and $100,000 in 2015, Short claimed.

Nous will start trading in the real currency markets “as soon as our trading hypothesis has been confirmed”.

The app is simple to use, with graphs illustrating the live currency markets. “Everybody who plays proficiently will win some money – we don’t give it all to the top 10 players,” Short said.

In the longer term, the game and the investment strategy will embrace financial instruments other than currencies.

One drawback with currencies, said Short, is that the markets close at weekends, which is when most people have time to play.

To get round this he has expanded the app to include bitcoins, the virtual currency. It also covers the US and Australian dollars, the pound, the euro and the yen. Gain is available at nous.net.

(Published September 8th 2013)