Currensee

This article is about Forex social network. For Dutch payment organisation, see Currence.

Currensee Inc

Type	Private
Industry	Financial services
Founded	2008
Headquarters	Boston, United States
Key people	Dave Lemont CEO Asaf Yigal Co-founder Avi Leventhal Co-founder
Products	currency trading, Social network
Website	www.currensee.com

Currensee (or currensee.com) is a financial services company based in Boston to serve as a social network for foreign exchange (FX, Forex or currency) traders. The impetus to let traders collaborate on trading strategies, styles, and techniques stemmed from the fundamental chaos of the retail forex market, where regulations vary from country to country and the were a high number of solo "Day traders".^[1]

From this initial social networking foray emerged Currensee's "Trade Leaders Investment Program," in which Currensee uses a proprietary algorithm to identify top-performing traders from within the social network, invites them to participate in the program, and then allows other investors to follow and execute their trades in their own brokerage account. Something that was akin to the mutual fund system based in stock indexes.

History

The company was founded in 2008 by software developer Asaf Yigal and Forex trader Avi Leventhal,^[2] at the time of the late-2000s recession. They identified an opportunity to offer Forex trading as an alternative asset class and a new way to trade together.^[2]

The company is currently led by CEO Dave Lemont, and is headquartered in Boston's North End neighborhood. Currensee is funded by North Bridge Venture Partners, Egan-Managed Capital and Vernon & Park Capital.^[3] They are a member of the National Futures Association and registered with the Financial Services Authority.^[4]

The Currensee Social Network

Together Yigal and Leventhal combining social networking with real trade collaboration. Currensee’s goal was to bring transparency to retail Forex trading by creating an active network of traders and a different way to make investing decisions.^[5] The Currensee trading social network connects retail Forex traders from around the world so they can see each others' actual trades and share trading strategies in real time to make more informed trade decisions.

Traders link their live brokerage accounts to Currensee, so when they participate in discussions and on trading teams, fellow traders can look at their trading performance and make an informed decision about their next trade. This form of social trading, or trading together, allows Forex traders to collaborate and share their Forex best practices, trading strategies, preferred pairs and economic indicators, and so on.^[6] This is a key differentiator, as there is a wide discrepancy between user performance in "demo accounts" and live brokerage accounts.

As at 2010 the social network was made up of members from over 80 countries connecting with other traders to form online trading teams, share trading ideas, market insights, and trading strategies. With the 7,000-member community traded approximately $50 billion in volume per year.^[7][8]

Currensee’s motto is “Trade Together”. Currensee differentiates itself from other online trading communities by allowing only live Forex brokerage accounts to be linked in a trader’s Currensee profile. They do not link demo accounts. The company’s message of “Real trades. Real traders. Real time.” supports their stance on transparency in the Forex market.

Trade Leaders Investment Program

In October 2010, Currensee launched their Trade Leaders Investment Program (TLIP). Investors in the TLIP select the Trade Leader (or Trade Leaders) whose trades they want to follow and execute in their own trading account. Trade Leaders are selected from the members of the Currensee social network via a proprietary algorithm developed by Currensee's engineering team, and are screened for eligibility based on historical performance, risk management, and returns.

Investors in the program select the Trade Leaders they want to invest in, allocate their funds, and build Trade Leader portfolios. Whenever a Trade Leader executes a trade, it is mirrored in the investor’s own brokerage account. The investors are able to see every trade that is made. The model is similar to that of a stock mutual fund.

Leaderboard and the Trader Authority Index

The Trader Leaderboard ranks the top traders in the Currensee community based on historical and real-time performance.

Trade Leaders featured on Currensee’s Leaderboard are measured against the Trader Authority Index (TAI). The TAI is a proprietary algorithm that combines performance, risk and experience into a single index.^[9] The TAI score is displayed on the Currensee Trade Leaderboard and on every Trade Leader’s profile.

Tweet My Trades

Currensee allows its members the option of automatically sharing their open and closed positions using the Tweet My Trades feature using Twitter. When a trader executes an order, Currensee automatically sends a tweet on the trader’s behalf.^[10] This serves a dual purpose, as the high volume of daily tweets spread throughout the Forex community on Twitter extends their reach beyond their own network of users.

Currensee Social Indicators

Currensee Market Watch Social Indicators is another proprietary element; this one aggregates the trading knowledge of the network to deliver unique social data. Currensee Social Indicators provide real-time, aggregate trade information by currency pair along with volume, percentage short/long, and winning/losing across the community. Members can see which of their “trading friends” are trading a particular pair and can use that information to make more informed trading decisions.^[11] This ability to share amongst a community is a key pillar of successful social networks, although it's unknown how effective this data is for new traders.

References

1. ^ "Powered by Google Docs". Docs.google.com. https://docs.google.com/viewer?url=http://www.currensee.com/files/DJFOREXVIEW.pdf. Retrieved 2011-08-12. 
2. ^ ^{a b} "Currensee: A Support Network for Traders Risking their Personal Fortunes on the Foreign Exchange Market". http://www.xconomy.com/boston/2009/04/30/currensee-a-support-network-for-traders-risking-their-personal-fortunes-on-the-foreign-exchange-market/. Retrieved 2011-08-12. 
3. ^ Boston Business Journal - by Rodney Brown (2010-02-23). "Currensee cashes in on $8M venture round - Boston Business Journal". Bizjournals.com. http://www.bizjournals.com/boston/stories/2010/02/22/daily24.html?ana=from_rss&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+bizj_boston+(Boston+Business+Journal)&loc=interstitialskip. Retrieved 2011-08-12. 
4. ^ "Currensee Forex Social Trading Network Launches | News | Broker News". Brokernewsblog.com. http://www.brokernewsblog.com/index.php/20091020228/Broker-News/News/Currensee-Forex-Social-Trading-Network-Launches.html. Retrieved 2011-08-12. 
5. ^ "Currensee Offers A Social Network For Forex Traders". Nuwireinvestor.com. 2009-12-21. http://www.nuwireinvestor.com/articles/currensee-offers-a-social-network-for-forex-traders-54278.aspx. Retrieved 2011-08-12. 
6. ^ Crosman, Penny (2009-10-20). "Currensee Offers Facebook-Like Community to Lonely Foreign Exchange Traders - Wall Street & Technology". Wallstreetandtech.com. http://www.wallstreetandtech.com/advancedtrading/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=220700149&cid=RSSfeed_TechWeb. Retrieved 2011-08-12. 
7. ^ May 14, 2010 (2010-05-14). "Currensee hits 1 million trades just six months after launch". VentureBeat. http://venturebeat.com/2010/05/14/currensee-1-million-trades/. Retrieved 2011-08-12. 
8. ^ "Currensee Makes Foreign Currency Trading Accessible to Every Investor | CountingPips | Forex Blog | Currency Trading News". CountingPips. 2010-10-29. http://countingpips.com/fx/2010/10/29/launches-industry%E2%80%99s-first-forex-trade-automation-service-enabling-investors-to-follow-and-execute-trades-of-top-currensee-traders/. Retrieved 2011-08-12. 
9. ^ "Currensee debuts forex trader leader board". www.currensee.com. 2010-04-14. http://www.currensee.com/about-us/news-events/currensee-real-time-forex-trader-leaderboard. Retrieved 2011-08-12. 
10. ^ "Tweet My Trades – Real Time Forex Poisitions on Twitter". Forex Crunch. 2010-02-03. http://www.forexcrunch.com/tweet-my-trades-real-time-forex-poisitions-on-twitter/. Retrieved 2011-08-12. 
11. ^ "First Social Network for Forex Traders | Web 2.0 Journal". Web2.sys-con.com. http://web2.sys-con.com/node/1150349. Retrieved 2011-08-12. 

External links

• Currensee