KINFO is a social investing app that verifies your trades and let's you compare your performance to others (who've also verified).
Investing can seem like a lonely game. Reading investment blogs, articles, and books can add to your investing knowledge, but how well are you doing compared to your peers? After all, you want all the investment knowledge you’re consuming to pay off, right?
Comparing your performance against others probably sounds like something you’re interested in. But how? Simple: KINFO. KINFO is a mobile app that allows you to publish your investment performance and compare it against other KINFO users that have done the same. No sensitive details are published. In this article, you’ll learn about KINFO and how it can help make you a better investor.
What Is KINFO?
As mentioned above, KINFO is a mobile app that analyzes your investing performance. To get started, sign up here. Then download the app, connect it to your trading account, and pick a few traders to start following.
It takes about three months for KINFO to fully display your performance. You’ll be able to view performance across various time frames. You’ll receive a rating as well. Ratings are based on the Sharpe ratio. Anyone following you will be displayed at the top of the app.
Brokerages that KINFO currently works with include:
Oh, and it’s free. That’s right — there’s no cost for using KINFO.
Note that KINFO is basically a view-only app. This means you can’t trade from KINFO. It’s just for analysis. Also, KINFO is not a brokerage service. They are an intermediary that provides analysis services at no cost.
Social Investing
The big benefit of using KINFO is that you can see how well others are performing. You can then pick people to follow. For anyone you’re following, you’ll get a notification when they make a trade. You can see what they are trading, which provides some great insight, especially if they have a good track record.
Some of the information you can see of those you’re following include their performance, which can you view across different time frames. Their holdings are also visible. You’ll be able to see how much of each holding is allocated across their portfolio. You can also view previous trades, even before you started following someone.
KINFO helps you build your investor confidence by watching those you’re following. Be careful when trying to implement strategies from multiple investors. That can be very confusing. A better method is to follow a few investors and watch what they are doing. Start narrowing down those you watch. You should be able to identify a common theme across their trading styles, which you can then begin to implement into your style.
Besides traders, you can also view what hedge funds, insiders, and analysts are doing.
Now, what about security?
How Secure Is KINFO?
KINFO is secure, so you won’t have to worry about security. They don’t store or even use your brokerage login information. This is accomplished through a third-party aggregator called “TradeIt.” They also use 256-bit encryption. KINFO will only read your brokerage data. They have no way to make any changes to it or place trades.
Here are a few additional details from their website on how KINFO connects with your brokerage account: “When you integrate a brokerage account with KINFO, the bank provides KINFO with a token that allows very limited access to your account. This token is separate from your brokerage credentials and is the industry standard for sharing financial data.”
Additionally, you don’t have to use your real name. You can provide a nickname, which can act as an alias, keeping your identity completely concealed.
Support for Options Traders
If your portfolio and trading are focused on options, KINFO doesn’t fully support option historical data. This means performance will be tracked from the time you sign up but not before.
Contacting KINFO
When you visit the KINFO website, you’ll notice there isn’t a contact link anywhere. KINFO uses a chat service to communicate with customers. Look in the bottom right for a small image of a circle with a white message box in it. Click it to reveal the chat. This is where you can type in any question.
There’s a chance the chat will be offline. However, you can still type in your question. The chat should then prompt for your email address. Typing in your email address will allow the support team to get back to you at a later time via email. Their support is responsive and helpful.
How Does KINFO Compare?
While KINFO was one of the first social investing apps, there is some competition in the space.
One of the more notable competitors is Tornado - which allows you to both connect your portfolio and transfer your portfolio to their platform. A key difference is that Nvstr also allows paper trading, so you can practice trading and see how your mock portfolio would perform over time.
Final Thoughts
KINFO is a smart little app that brings social investing to anyone. You can use their mobile app or website to view the performance of your trades and that of those you’re following. Eventually, you may discover a new trading style and be able to slowly start implementing it into your trading.
Kinfo Review
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Commission and Fees
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Ease of Use
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Products and Services
Overall
Summary
KINFO is a social investing app that lets you see your investing performance, as well as compare and follow others.
Pros
- Great investment performance tracking
- Links to most brokerage platforms
- Allows you to see and compare with others who make their portfolios public
Cons
- Doesn’t fully support options or crypto
Editor: Clint Proctor Reviewed by: Chris Muller
Robert Farrington is the founder of The College Investor and is widely recognized as one of the nation’s leading voices on student loan debt and saving for college. He holds an MBA from UC San Diego Rady School of Management and has spent over 15 years researching, writing, and advising on student loans, 529 plans, financial aid programs, and saving and investing for young professionals.
Robert has been featured in the The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, NBC News, and Forbes, where he has been a regular personal finance contributor for over a decade. His work combines both professional expertise and personal experience – he successfully navigated his own student loan repayment journey and has helped thousands of readers do the same.
He is committed to making the intersection of personal finance and education transparent and accessible. You can learn more about Robert on the About Page or on his personal site RobertFarrington.com.