I have an iPhone and I use built in Stocks app to monitor what is happening in the market. The Stocks app icon looks like this
Once you load the app it is very easy to add stocks with their ticker names. It is not so straight forward to monitor Commodities or Futures prices though. I added Silver (SI=F), Gold (GC=F), Oil (CL=F), S&P500 (SPX) and S&P500 Futures (ES=F). My screen looks like this
New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) trading hours are from 9:30am to 4pm local time (US Eastern Time). I took the screenshot on Friday 12:30pm Dubai time. US Markets start trading at 17:30 Dubai time. So US market is closed right now however Asian stock exchanges are open so people can trade certain stocks and index funds there.
S&P500 Futures is showing +4.45% up where S&P500 closed yesterday (Black Thursday) a historical crash of -9.51%. You can monitor Futures prices to see what is happening outside US trading hours. I am also monitoring Crude Oil prices now by adding CL=F ticker. Oil had dropped 30% this week! The biggest daily drop since 1990. Today OIL price is up +4% that is also impacting the S&P500 Index.
You can also view your Stocks screen without loading the app. Simply slide left in your iPhone to see notifications. Stocks app snippet is there. I am quite often checking what is happening in the market and my friends ask me how I built that screen. That is how this post was born.
I prefer Saxo app to trade US market indexes. Check out this screenshot taken on Friday at 12:45pm in UAE. I can trade right now when US market is closed.
Note the leverage of 20X for the S&P500 index. In order to buy a single CFD contract at $2500, you only need $125 in your account. Be careful with margin trading as you may lose all your money. This is like gambling in my opinion because nobody knows where markets will go. Market is a “Random Walk Down Wall Street“.
For example you have $10K in your account and used 20X leverage by buying $200K worth of index fund. Imagine you got so unlucky, S&P500 Index dropped 10% like yesterday. You would lose $20K however you only had $10K in your account. That means you should owe $10K to Saxo right? Nope nope nope brokers and banks do not take this kind of risks once your margin gets near to 100% utilisation, Saxo will automatically close your position so you can never lose money that you do not have. In this case after 4% drop Saxo would close the position and you would have a little bit money in your account left. Be safe with margin trading.