Mobile Financial App Users More Likely to Report Big Returns: Fidelity

A study released by Fidelity early Tuesday shows that investors using mobile financial applications outperform their low-tech counterparts. The research also finds that a large number use these mobile apps in the bedroom (65%), office (68%) and in front of the TV (77%).

Fidelity’s Mobile Money Study, which polled about 1,200 investors with more than $50,000 of investable assets, finds that close to 70% of those trading with mobile apps feel this gives them an advantage over other investors.

Supporting this sentiment is the finding that more than 40% of frequent users of financial apps says they’ve had a return on their investments of more than 20% in the past 12 months vs. just 22% of less-frequent users.

“In the past year, investors increased mobile trades at Fidelity more than 40%, and our survey found that more than one-third of mobile traders make trade decisions on the spur of the moment, capitalizing on investing opportunities from their screen, anywhere,” said Velia M. Carboni, senior vice president of Fidelity’s mobile channel, in a statement.

The Fidelity survey shares that more than half of those polled (56%) perform sophisticated investing tasks on mobile financial apps. These tasks include conducting technical research and charting (43%), doing fundamental research and reading analyst reports (44%) and trading at least once a month (41%).

More than half (53%) say they placed their first mobile trade over the past 12 months.

Location, Location, Location

Investors use financial apps on their mobile devices for basic tasks like checking account balances (71%) and paying bills online (53%).

Where they tend to such mundane activities, though, is more diverse than might be expected.

The Fidelity research uncovered the following: 65% of mobile users say they use financial apps in the bedroom, 49% in the car, 35% at the dinner table and 10% on the golf course.