Trade Stocks From Your BlackBerry

The financial industry was one of the first to widely adopt BlackBerries and incorporate them into their daily work flow. So it's a bit surprising that it has taken so long for stock trading programs for smartphones to surface. But E*Trade has stepped up to the plate with a new offering, and will allow you to manage your portfolio while on the go.

Any busy medical professional knows how little time they have during the day to take care of personal business. With trading floors only open a limited number of hours during the work day, it can be near to impossible to find enough time to sit down at a computer, log in, and check your investments. For active investors, this can cause serious delays in how quickly they respond to market conditions and news announcements that might affect their portfolio. If your financial investments are giving you an added headache, E*Trade is providing some relief in the form of new trading software for BlackBerry smartphones.

E*Trade Mobile Pro gives customers many of the same interface, security, trading and banking features available on their desktops with the added capability and convenience of accessing real-time information and transacting any time, anywhere, from their BlackBerry smartphones.

The new software will be made available to existing E*Trade customers for free, though there will be some minimum specifications required for the BlackBerry device itself. E*TRADE Mobile Pro will be compatible with the BlackBerry Curve, Pearl and 8800 Series smartphones, as well as other models running Device Software 4.1 or higher.

E*Trade Mobile Pro offers a number of benefits aside from simple trading. Other features include real-time stock quotes, brokerage and bank account QuickTransfers, live watchlists and portfolios, and, most importantly, secure transactions backed by the E*TRADE Complete Protection Guarantee.

Jeff McDowell, Vice President, Global Alliances at Research In Motion, said, "E*Trade Mobile Pro provides innovative and practical capabilities that complement the communications, connectivity and multimedia features used by millions of BlackBerry smartphone customers today."

E*Trade did not say whether or not it will support other smartphone platforms, such as Windows Mobile, in the future.

So now there's no excuse to ignore your investments (with the exception of the patients, of course). With a BlackBerry in hand, so is all the power you need to make smart and informed investment choices.