How to Create a Stock Market Website? [Guide for Owners]

How to build a stock market website? What are the main difficulties of this process? What functionality should this platform have? How much does it cost, and how long does it take? You will find all the information you need in our new article.

How Do Stock Market Platforms Work? 

A stock trading platform is a place that can be used to place orders for financial products such as stocks, bonds, currencies, commodities and derivatives with financial intermediaries such as brokers, dealers, market makers or stock exchanges over the network. Before we start talking about how to build a stock market website, let’s analyze how it works and what types and trends of stock trading platforms exist.

Stock trading platforms allow financial intermediaries to find their favorite stocks and expand investment opportunities. In this way, investors use stock market websites and can learn how to invest wisely by accessing the funds they want to invest in.

Why Do You Need to Build a Stock Market Website?

Instead of substantial market value, stock trading platforms have demonstrated their unprecedented value for both investors and brokers. Let’s highlight the benefits of building stock market websites.

Worldwide accessibility  

Despite the geographical location, brokers, traders or investors can do their business from anywhere in the world. All they need is just an Internet connection and an account with a brokerage firm.

Efficient data management

The online stock market and trading platforms act as CRM software solutions to effectively manage customer data.

Permanent platform access

Where stock markets don’t stay open all the time, trading platforms come in handy. Users of stock market platforms can access information at any time.

Real-time data availability

The ability to access real-time market trading data is the main reason why users switch to using such platforms. Moreover, cutting-edge technologies such as artificial intelligence can be built into a stock market website to help users make better stock choices while reducing investment risk. 

How to Build a Stock Market Website in 11 Steps

How to create a stock trading platform and what development stages should you go through? We have compiled a detailed guide that will help you learn how to create a stock trading platform in more detail. 

Step 1. Idea validation

Everything always starts with an idea. However, your idea of ​​a future product shouldn’t become another product copy. You always need to improve what already exists or solve problems in another way. That is, you need to add something new and innovative to your product. Thus, you can definitely distinguish your product from hundreds of other similar ones. The aspect of novelty and innovativeness is crucial, especially in the digital world.

Step 2. Mobile or web app first?

How to build a trading platform and be successful? Good planning is always the key to success. You need to describe your idea in the form of a business plan, including monetization and steps to achieve the goal. 

Beside this, it is valuable to set the right expectations for the product to avoid any product misconceptions and project failure. To do this, hold a discovery workshop to learn what type of application to start building first. Thus, you will decide how your trading platform will interact with users’ devices.

• Mobile application. The mobile app has a lot of useful features that are more convenient for users to interact with. For example, messaging capability, notifications, use of phone cameras, GPS location, etc. If your platform is used “on the go” and requires immediate response – go mobile first. 
• Fully-fledged web application. If you are targeting users who primarily use computers with advanced trading features – go website first.

In any case, this choice strictly depends on your project size, previous industry background and financial capabilities.

If you need help with business planning or monetizing your product, we will be happy to help you. Feel free to contact us.    

Very often, you should start creating a new product with an MVP. You can read more about this in our article How To Create a Minimum Viable Product (MVP)? [Startup Case Studies].

Step 3. Business requirements

Next, you should create a document with the requirements for your project. This document is needed for the design and development team that will work on your project. Usually, the design requirements (specifications) document includes the following things:

• Full project overview 
• Primary needs and goals 
• Target audience
• Functional requirements and desired set of features 
• Aesthetic aspects 
• Non-functional details 
• Recommendation and prohibitions 
• Questions

You can find more about creating such a document in our article How To Write The Design Specification? [Quick Guide]. 

Step 4. Security requirements

If you’re building a stock trading platform from scratch and dealing with sensitive information like user data, social security numbers, or credit card credentials, you must first address the legal aspect. 

If you operate in the United States, you must adhere to the Securities and Exchange Commission’s guidelines. Trading platform developers in Europe assess if their implementations match the regulatory criteria of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

Among the other regulatory entities and investor protection initiatives are:

• SIPC – Securities Investor Protection Corporation
• NFA– National Futures Association
• FINRA – Financial Industry Regulatory Authority

Step 5. Product discovery

Product discovery includes drawing up the business logic of your product and competing research that will help you create a solution that will outperform other players in the market. You also need to determine what problem your product will solve, whether people will buy and use your product and whether your solution will work.

The more information you collect and prepare at this stage, the easier it will be for your design and development team to understand what kind of product they need to create. It will also increase the likelihood that you will be able to create a truly valuable solution.

While working on the FXF project, the discovery phase included understanding the client’s needs and defining and interviewing the target audience.

Step 6. UX design

How to build a trading platform that will be user-friendly? We mentioned earlier that UX is vital for any product. Here are 6 steps to successful UX design:

1. Study the users. The first step is to understand exactly who you are designing for. There are many methods to get information about your users. Combine quantitative and qualitative analytics and feedback data. Only by understanding your users’ goals, needs, and desires can you create an effective design for them. 

2. Define scenarios. Next, based on your research, be clear about what you (or rather your users) are trying to achieve. Create the perfect journey map for your client and identify any possible barriers on the way. Define as many scenarios and uses as possible for your product/service.

4. Formulate an idea. Gather together all the collected information and start brainstorming. Create a storyboard or mood board to convey the problem you are trying to solve visually.
5. Create a prototype. Prototyping is the most effective way to bring your idea to life even before the development stage. Lay out a mock-up of the interface with all its important components on paper, and then ask as many people as possible to replay the script. This process will help you identify any potential barriers or unexpected user behavior that you may have overlooked.

Working on the FXF project, our prototyping stage included:

• Style design
• Customer journey map
• Site map
• Wireframes
• Responsive design
• Mobile app design

Here’s what we got as a result.

6. Test it. Testing is vital for UX design. It doesn’t have to be a long, laborious process. According to the Nielsen Norman Group, 85% of all problems on your site can be detected by just 5 users.
7. Repeat steps as needed. Depending on your testing results, you may need to go back to the idea stage and find some other alternative solutions. The UX design process is iterative: some steps need to be repeated to achieve the desired result.

FXF project was projected to meet the needs of both beginner and advanced traders, so we created different user personas to address the requirements of both auditories.

After the detailed research and in-depth interviews, we found that all the existed cryptocurrency exchange aggregators and similar solutions had the following characteristics that could be avoided/ improved in the FXF project:

• Multiple accounts
• Multiple wallets
• Multiple KYC (identity verification procedures)
• Multiple interfaces

With these drawbacks in mind, we built a complex customer journey map that covered all the actions and desired functions and a site map that summarized the app architecture.

Step 7. UI design

How to build a trading platform that will be visually attractive for users? The UI is focused on making the user experience a pleasant experience. UI design is all the elements that the user sees and interacts with. For example:  

• buttons 
• text fields 
• checkboxes 
• sliders 
• search bars 
• tags 
• icons

The main color used in the FXF project is black that is associated with top-level products. The logo was made gold to reflect the value and the premium quality of the product. Also, since red and green are the colors widely used in trading charts and recognized by all users, we utilized them for graphics to make the design intuitive and user-friendly:

1. We designed a desktop version of FXF.
2. We worked on the site’s responsive design, ensuring that users could conveniently access the aggregator from mobile devices.
3. We created a mobile app that allowed for an enhanced user experience.

Although it was challenging to fit all the markets into a small screen, we came up with a design solution that allowed for the convenient display of all the essential information.

Step 8. Full-cycle development

At this stage, you need to transform the finished design into a working website. For this stage, our team most often assigns 2+ developers (for front-end and back-end development). The development phase consists of the following steps:

• Tech stack & documentation. Our development team uses their expertise to determine the best technologies for your project. Then, we create comprehensive technical documentation outlining all features and functionality, as well as user role relationships, so that you are up-to-date on every aspect of the product. 

• Website architecture plan. Developers create the basic structure of the website. On the back end, they choose whether it will be, for example, a monolith or microservices and choose the controllers and types of APIs they will use. On the front end, developers determine how the user interface will be implemented and schematically depict which parts of the product will interact with each other.

• Sprints planning. At this stage, we determine the priority and sequence of features creation. This stage is critical because the entire website development plan is based on it.

• Infrastructure setup for testing + CI/CD to the test servers. To maximize customer satisfaction, our DevOps team creates a production-like environment for running the developed website on cloud platforms. This gives customers direct access to inspect and test websites before launch, while changes we make automatically propagate throughout this system with minimal effort from them.

• Client and server development & QA. At this stage, client and server parts of the product are developed (development of UI components, API, etc.) and tested. 

• Regression Testing. QA tests the entire product thoroughly. We fix bugs that may have appeared when we were adding new features and product components.

• Production Infrastructure setup + CI/CD to the prod servers. We create a separate, more flexible and scalable environment on the cloud that is production-ready. We configure domains and the system so that all changes we make to the product automatically appear in this environment.   

Step 9. QA and testing

How to build a stock market website without any bugs and mistakes? The answer is to test the platform well initially. It is impossible to underestimate testing as the process of identifying flaws in a platform or website, particularly in Fintech. 

Financial technology cannot afford flaws because they risk causing clients to lose money. The more problems quality assurance engineers discover the more likely the final product will function properly. The structure of the testing process is determined by the trading platform development business or the client’s needs and may include:

• Functional testing. Financial platform test cases are carried out with the use of fake cards. These cards attempt to improve payment quality, speed, etc.
• Performance testing. The process of determining the system’s speed, scalability, and stability is known as performance testing. The speed is tested to understand the velocity of app responses, while scalability reveals the maximum number of people who may use the app simultaneously without the app crashing. Furthermore, stability indicates if the program operates well under varied loads or if there are any potential flaws.

Step 10. Launch

When you have successfully gone through all stages, you can launch your product. 

Do you think this is the end? The work on the product has just begun! There are still many iterations ahead of you, and you need to be prepared for this.

After the release of the product, your task is to collect feedback from the first users quickly. How to do it? For example, conduct a survey or interview. After receiving feedback, it will be clear what needs to be changed: something will have to be added, and something will have to be permanently removed.

Don’t be discouraged if your product gets a lot of negative reviews – this can be used to improve your product. 

Step 11. Scaling

Scaling is the process of fine-tuning the specifics of a digital product in order to make it the best it can be under current (and predicted) market conditions. It is dependent on frequent modifications and adaptations, including the introduction of new features, as specified, which are evaluated with the product’s user base. 

Scaling is about taking full use of the market’s prospects when the product has already been proved fit for the market.

How to Create a Stock Trading Website With Northell Team

Northell team specializes in creating advanced Fintech web applications that offer maximum security and scalability while remaining intuitive for users. Our reliable toolset allows startups, SMBs, and world-class enterprises to stay competitive with ever-changing market demands.

We support business growth through our innovative solutions, which help customers manage their expansion and maintain technical viability.

We have a wealth of knowledge and experience in creating stock trading products. We know how to build a stock market website that will be in demand.

One of our clients, FXF, needed exceptional standardization, unification of the cryptocurrency trading system, and a unique set of features to make the solution fast, simple, and convenient both for beginner and advanced traders.

FXF aggregates offers from participating exchanges, thus, providing users with access to the best buy and sell prices. The project strives to empower the cryptocurrency community, providing traders with top-level transparency and an exceptional level of liquidity that the market couldn’t boast of so far.

To implement our customer’s idea, we first started reviewing and analyzing design and branding sketches. Based on this review, we have identified several areas for further work:

• Organize strong data protection. Since this application includes work with monetary transactions, our team needed to ensure user data’s complete security and safety. We did this with the help of our best security practices.
• Create responsive design. In order to increase the number of users of the FXF product, our team created a desktop, web, and mobile version of the product. 
• Rebuild information architecture. Since our team needed to add new functionality to the product, we built a new information architecture. As a result, the product has become more logical and high-performing.

As a result, we designed a platform with much-needed standardization and unification to the cryptocurrency trading system, making it clearer and faster for traders of any experience to use.

More about the FXF project you can read here. 

Stock Market Overview and Trends

Knowing the trends that can affect the stock market can help you understand better how to create a stock trading platform. We have compiled a list of top trends that you should be aware of:

Covid-19 vaccine and pharmaceutical stocks boosting

If the pharmaceutical industry can control Covid-19, it will be a scientific accomplishment. Companies that participate in the endeavor will be highly rewarded.

Some beneficiaries will be clear, such as vaccine manufacturers Pfizer (PFE) or Moderna (MRNA), while firms that are focusing on therapeutic pharmaceuticals, such as Regeneron (REGN), will also profit.

There will also be less apparent victors. Just one example: distributing the vaccination will necessitate a massive logistical effort. Some vaccinations, for instance, need shipment at temperatures much below freezing, so companies who market cooling technologies stand to gain.

Demand for restaurant stocks

Fast-casual restaurant franchises stand to gain from a possible return to normalcy. Many have hobbled along on take-out orders, but on the day Pfizer revealed its vaccine achieved 90% effectiveness in Phase 3 studies, there was a general rally among chain restaurants spanning practically every cuisine.

Darden (Olive Garden and Longhorn Steakhouse) (DRI), Ruth’s Chris Hospitality Group (RUTH), Cracker Barrel (CBRL), Cheesecake Factory (CAKE), Denny’s (DENN), and Dave & Buster’s (PLAY) all enjoyed double-digit percent gains that day, to name a few.

The sphere of socially responsible investment

In 2023, many investors are actively investing in stocks of companies whose policies are in line with their social, corporate and environmental principles. Thus, S&P Global Market Intelligence conducted a study in which 26 funds from the sphere of responsible investment (ESG) were examined. 19 of them showed better financial results during the coronavirus pandemic (from March 2020 to March 2021) than the S&P 500. Based on these data, it can be assumed that the ESG sphere will not lose popularity in 2023.

Bitcoin opportunities

In recent months, the crypto market has been experiencing increased volatility. Against the background of attempts by the price of bitcoin to recover after falling to $30 thousand, the exchange rate of many other digital currencies also looks unstable. Some analysts assumed the possibility of a drop in Bitcoin quotes to $10-20 thousand. However, in his video review, Benjamin Cowen claims that Bitcoin is ready to return to an upward trend.

How to Create a Stock Market Website and What Type of Trading Platform to Choose

In general, there are such types of trading platforms:

• Prop (proprietary) trading platforms. Proprietary platforms are created by big brokerage companies and imitate the style of trading and specifications of electronic brokerage models.
• Commercial trading platforms. Retail investors and day traders are the primary targets of commercial trading platforms. Commercial trading platforms are simple to use and provide useful tools such as charts and news feeds to help investors and traders do research and provide more insightful information. 
• Cryptocurrency platforms. Crypto platforms allow you to sell and buy items, accessing the whole world and making all kinds of transactions faster than traditional online stock markets. 
• Platforms with company shares. Types of platforms where you can buy company shares from one of the best stock brokers. 
• Index platforms. Index trading is the way traders can speculate index price changes. In other words, it is a statistical measurement of stock market fluctuations.
• Forex platforms. This type of platform is a form of online trading that requires you to have a deep understanding of currencies, geopolitics, and the trading business in general.  
• ETF.  An exchange-traded fund (ETF) is a set of securities that you can buy or sell through a brokerage firm on a stock exchange.

To choose a specific type of trading platform, you need to know your trade specialization and the professional assistance from a dedicated software development team.    

How to Create a Stock Trading Platform and Overcome Main Challenges

How to build a stock market website and make it a success? First of all, you should be aware of the challenges that you may face during product development. Let us look at some of them!

Financial security

When it comes to finances, security should come first. You should remember that the better your trading platform is protected from leaks of users’ personal data and other types of fraud, the more trust in it will be on the part of users. Therefore, your product will be used by a large number of people.

Legal regulation

Because you will be entering the financial sector, you should obtain legal advice before you begin. In the United States, the Securities and Exchange Commission is in charge of the legal aspects of internet trading.

In addition to the SEC (Securities and Exchange Commission), you should register with:

• MSRB (Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board)
• CBOE (Chicago Board Options Exchange)
• FINRA (Financial Industry Regulatory Authority)
• NFA (National Futures Association)

As the platform’s owner, you should get acquainted with the necessary norms and regulations. Furthermore, before you begin creating the website, you should consider the registration process and other factors.

Idea and innovation

How to create a stock trading platform that will be popular? Today there are a large number of trading platforms. Therefore, your product idea should be clearly described at the very first stages of development. To stand out from hundreds of other products, you need to add something innovative and recognizable to your platform. 

It can have some unique features, remarkable design, etc. Also, your product should answer a specific question. That is, your product must locally or globally solve a problem that you think exists.

Onboarding

The trading platform is a complex product. Therefore, it is vital to explain how the platform works in the first minutes of user interaction with the product. Good onboarding ensures that users will not leave the platform. No one will use a product that does not show how to use its functionality.

User experience

User experience covers all aspects of the end-user interaction with the company, its services, and its products. It represents the totality of all human sensations during these interactions. For your platform users to have a great experience, you need to consider the following:

• Interaction Design 
• User Interface 
• Visual Design 
• Typography
• Usability 
• Information Architecture 
• Content 
• Functionality

We will talk about this in more detail later. 

Lack of Trust

Lack of trust in the trading platform is a widespread problem. People do not want to lose money, so most often, they bypass the platform where they see at least one hint of fraud. Your task is to make people sure that they will not be deceived.

How to Build a Stock Market Website With Top Features

How to build a stock market website that will win the attention of thousands of beginners and professional traders? Of course, the platform must have certain functionality and features. Our team has compiled a list of top features for the stock market website. Let’s take a look at them:

Personal account

In how to create a stock trading platform, success depends on functionality. 

Giving the ability to establish a distinct user personal account is important for a variety of reasons:

• It contributes to a more customized experience
• Send customized suggestions
• It assists in gamification (required when you scale)

Demo account for training

This account will help users prepare for real trading without losing money. Take this feature seriously as the user experience will largely depend on it.

The presence of alerts

For users to always be aware of events, news and updates, they should receive regular alerts. Alerts indicate that you care about your users.

Push messages

Every user should be able to get customized push messages. It might be when their chosen stock outperforms or underperforms. Or when a new firm is set to launch its initial public offering (IPO). Send notifications to leaders when someone follows them.

History and analytics

Make sure your users can view their deposit history. Create built-in capabilities to assist them in viewing their previous trading performance. This is critical in learning how to develop a stock trading platform. If clients can review their prior transactions, they can better plan their future ones.

24/7 technical support

In any unclear situation or when a problem arises, users should be able to contact support at any time for help.

Use of touch ID or face ID

This feature increases the platform’s security and gives users confidence that they will not have personal data leakage and, as a result, money.

One-click purchase

By using this feature, users will be able to save a lot of time buying and selling stocks. Hence, they will be more active on the platform.

Current market news

A news feed feature will keep clients up to date on the social aspects of trading. It will encourage people to interact with one another. Traders may exchange their knowledge, trading strategies, and success metrics.

Training and onboarding

Onboarding is one of the most important features of the stock trading platform. Users need to be shown what the platform is capable of and how they can use it to achieve their goals.

Search

Every user should be able to search for a certain stock and company readily.

How to Choose a Tech Stack to Create a Stock Market Website

When you decide on selecting the best fit tech stack to build a trading platform, you can turn to professionals with relevant experience for a practical solution.

Based on the recent project’s tech choice, you can consider the following tech stack:

The technology stack decision should be carefully considered to ensure the reliability and stability of the trading platform. 

How to Hire Stock Market Website Developers 

To hire the required team to complete your project, you should consider team composition first. Then, choose the hiring option that best suits your business needs and financial capabilities. 

Team composition

Before you start hiring a dream team to develop stock trading platforms, ensure that your team will consist of the following members: 

• Project manager 
• Business analyst
• UX/UI designers 
• Backend developer 
• Frontend developer 
• QA specialist
• DevOps 

When choosing a team for your project, there are two options: in-house team and outsourced team. What is the best team to build a stock trading website? Of course, it all relies on your time and financial constraints. However, let’s weigh the pros and cons of each option.

Which hiring option to choose?

In-house development will cost you significantly more, but the main advantage is that you will be able to collaborate with a design and development team in person. 

Outsourcing is becoming more popular, and it has proven to be quite successful even when there is a time difference, communication is done online, and so on.

Nowadays, product development businesses use the best management approaches and an agile strategy to tackle these difficulties successfully. To be honest, it is the twenty-first century, and everyday communication is not an issue.

Our Northell team is now available for you and your project. Contact us to discuss the details of the project. We know how to build a trading platform that will win the hearts of many traders and investors. 

How Much Does It Cost to Create a Stock Market Website

How to build a stock market website and not lose lots of money? To do this, you need to know how much the stock trading platform can cost and how long the development can take before starting development.

The cost of creating a stock trading platform can vary greatly depending on the direction of the business and the required functionality, so it is impossible to give an exact development figure.

However, we have compiled a table of approximate prices for different stages of broker application development, depending on the country in which the design and development team is located.

How Long Does It Take to Create a Stock Market Website

Let’s also consider how long it takes to build a stock trading platform. For your convenience, we calculated how much time each stage of broker application development will take for different sizes of businesses:

Having this information in mind, you can calculate the approximate development cost and timeline of the entire project.

How to Build a Stock Market Website: Summary

How to create a stock trading platform? The world is continuously changing as a result of technological advancements, and the trade industry is no exception. Whether you are a trader, broker, or customer, the electronic trading platforms may appear complicated. However, stock market software might make one’s investments even more profitable.

So, while looking for a trading platform developer, consider all of your possibilities. Before selecting a stock market software provider, look for case studies, innovative and cutting-edge design talents, and a stronger communication platform.

Have an idea but don’t know how to build a trading platform? Let us know about your difficulties, and we’ll assist you in any way we can! We know how to build a stock market website.