Social investing site kaChing is opening up its investment data API to the public and investors to create applications off of its platform. kaChing, which also has a popular investing app on Facebook, allows anyone to create a virtual portfolio to gain followers. kaChing lets members see the managers who are make the most money and how they are doing it. Soon, the managers will be able to sell investment advice to other members of the network (kaChing is rolling this feature out soon and plans to takes a cut from the sales). The investment platform, which currently has about 1500 375,000 fantasy trading investors, is funded by some power players in Silicon Valley, including Marc Andreessen.
kaChing’s API is available for real time prices, access to portfolios, watchlists, performance history, trade history, research posts, and insights of top investors. Here’s a list of kaChing apps that have been made already from the API. The kind of apps that could be made with the API include iPhone apps, widgets, performance charts of friends on kaChing, and PDF reports of user holdings and performance.
CEO Dan Carroll says the site plans on incorporating features and functionality created by developers into the platform, which could make the site a pretty powerful platform for real investing once managers are able to manage actual money. kaChing has also enlisted financial cloud services startup Xignite to provide free financial market data to users. kaChing recently got the greenlight from the SEC to become a registered investment adviser and take on mutual funds by broadening the spectrum of mutual fund managers. Despite the market fluctuations over the past year, Carroll says that 1500 investors on kaChing had positive returns on their fantasy portfolios in 2008, compared to one actual mutual fund manager who had positive returns. Of course, they weren’t playing with real money so they had nothing to lose.