Traders have always thought in terms of tides, waves and cliffs. Soon they will be able to actually see them in the markets.
FlexTrade, a provider of trading tools for financial markets, has introduced an "augmented reality trading headset" that allows traders to interact with data in a whole new way. The system includes an interactive order blotter, trade ticket and charting, all presented in a three-dimensional virtual space.
The headset comes from Microsoft and relies on augmented reality, a technology that fuses computer-generated images with a user's view of the real world. Unlike virtual reality, which immerses the user in a computer-generated environment, augmented reality overlays new information on top of what users see in the physical world around them. AR technology is beginning to come into mainstream use, with the most notable example being Pokémon Go.
“We initially experimented with virtual reality trading, but the feedback was that the fully immersive headsets were too overwhelming, shutting off real-world events," Andy Mahoney, FlexTrade’s business development director, said in an announcement about the new trading device. "With the advent of the Microsoft HoloLens augmented reality headset, we found a good middle ground, bringing virtual trading into the real world.”
