# SwingTrader by IBD — user reviews > 48 indexed App Store user reviews of SwingTrader by IBD by Investor’s Business Daily, Inc., rated 2.90/5 from 101 ratings. - Source: https://appshunter.io/ios/app/swingtrader-by-ibd/id1132694075/reviews - App overview in markdown: https://appshunter.io/ios/app/swingtrader-by-ibd/id1132694075.md - Rating breakdown: 5★ 27 · 4★ 19 · 3★ 11 · 2★ 7 · 1★ 37 ## Newest reviews (15 of 48) ### 2/5 — Poor performance relative to market *2024-08-02, version 1.4.6* Day 1 of subscription and I log into the dashboard to see the YTD performance of Swing Trader is 2% vs 14% (SP500). Perhaps IBD should stick to position trading. What a waste of $50. ### 2/5 — no iPad app as advertising would have you believe *2022-03-19* Marketing material on their website shows a slick looking full screen app on an iPad. Such a thing does not exist. App is phone size, looking anything but slick as such. It’s not 2007 any more. If IBD can’t be bothered to provide a full screen iPad app … they don’t deserve subscription dollars. Others indicate alerts are delayed. Swing trading relies heavily on timing. A delay is alerts is unacceptable. ### 3/5 — I have to re-enter my username and password each time. *2022-02-03* The problem with the application, it often crashes out of the account, you have to enter your login and password again. ### 1/5 — Great service but worst app *2021-11-01* Constantly shows empty screen, can’t handle any load when new alert comes in the app. Two times today clicked on the alert for new trade and app shows me no data. By the time it refreshes, trade is out of the range. This is 2021 , for such a basic app it should not be having this kind of problems. Change your software developers, they don’t know what they are doing. ### 1/5 — Review after 1 year *2021-10-28* Notifications are always late sells or buys. Its hard to follow it, lots of times the buy point is already out of the range. Many will reverse, some may make you money. They never go by the stop loss, never wait a notification to sell! I made some money but it was way too many losses and few wins. Too much work and stress. I ll make way more just buying and leaving your money long term in a good stock. ### 1/5 — App has good design, but buggy *2021-10-26* I’ve been using this app for about 9 months. The concept and user design of the app and service is fine with me. However, the display of information is very buggy which makes it almost unusable. For me, the alerts come through reliably, although always too late to get a price close to the ST purchase price. But, the biggest problem is trying to get the current trades to show up in the trades list. More than 50% of the time it is blank, even after trying to refresh multiple times. If you can sit in front of a computer all day, ST is good. If you need to use this app at all, it’s terrible. IBD has blemish with this that doesn’t match up with all their other offerings. Very disappointed in the quality problem here. ### 1/5 — Time to retire this app *2021-10-14* I am a big fan of IBD and their suite of products. This is at the bottom of the list and it’s a shame, but the signs are there that time is up for this novelty app idea. Since they lost Mike Webster, aka Webbie, they seem to be spread thin and it shows in the YTD performance which is 1/3 of the S&P 500 index, and that’s 75% of the way through the year so most likely it will get crushed compared to the S&P, basically losing the advantage they had during year 1 of Covid. That’s abysmal. It seems that as the trade quality went south they decided to blame it on people who use bots, but what they’ve now done is rendered the app to be useless for us honest humans. No Face ID, web version doesn’t remember signin, and the vague alerts only state something along the lines ofsomething new is happening”, forcing you to go to the app and guess what? Then it doesn’t even take you to the thing that’s new, you often have to scour or refresh incessantly and try and figure out if you’re looking at the new recommendation. The emails have similar vagueness and cause equal frustration. Occasionally they have an image preview on the app notifications where you can see with a force press on iphone or Apple Watch, but it still doesn’t give enough details. In an effort to try and cater to a few disgruntled customers who blamed performance on someone using a bot - they’ve completely ruined the app by literally hiding their recommendations from their regular honest paying customers. By the time I go back to their site and app and repeatedly refresh, enjoin time has gone by that I may no longer want to consider the trade, not to mention I might get distracted by something at work and end up just giving up. I’m assuming most people who subscribe have day jobs and subscribe to this app to help supplement our trades. The sad part is, as a tech employee, I can confirm that these shenanigans still aren’t enough to stop people with basic bots and automation. If this is actually the issue, you can’t stop it by blocking your own customers, and so then it’s time to shut down the app completely. I find more value from these folks just listening to them on IBD Live in the mornings where they have excellent dialogue and engage with their customers. But as far as Swingtrader, the sun has set. ### 1/5 — Absolute Garbage *2021-09-22* Compared to all other sleek and well functioning IBD apps, this one feels and behaves like trash. It can’t even keep me logged in for a few hours. I have to log on multiple times a day. Especially if I click on any tab to leave current trades, it won’t go back to current trades before force shutting the app and logging back in. It couldn’t be more annoying. If you can’t manage to keep me logged in, at least implement Face ID so I can log in faster and easier. Shouldn’t be THAT hard, right? ### 1/5 — The S&P beats it. Waste of time and money! *2021-05-09* I have done the math for 2016 to present (May 2021). You are supposed to invest 12.5% of your portfolio on every single alert. For the past 6 years the IBD swing trader return is 8.96%, whereas that of the S&P 500 for the same period is 9.5%. You have to pay subscriptions, respond to alerts, and manage your account. Just put your money into the S&P 500 index. Read John Bogle’s “The little book of common sense investing”! ### 3/5 — Functionality is a issue. *2021-04-22* First off I’d like to say I think the world of WO and the IBD team. I loved this idea and allows me to come up with my own ideas and take advantage of the insights of the best traders in the industry. My issue is the awful functionality of this app. If I go from current trades to another section of the app, and back again, the current trade section shows up blank. No matter how many times I refreshed, it doesn’t work. Also things move fast. So when I click on the position size calculator, and 9/10 times it doesn’t correlate with the stock I was just clicked on, I can’t even use it. I’m wondering is this just an iPhone problem? It would also be super helpful if this app was linked to IBD so we can check out the fundamentals and other technicals. ### 1/5 — WHAT A JOKE *2021-04-19, version 1.4.4* Recieve the buy notification buy alerts to late. They don’t honor there own stops. Customer service seems to act like they don’t care about anything. It is a really great app for loosing money. TRADERS BEWARE ### 1/5 — I feel like I’ve been conned. *2021-02-19* I can’t believe that signing up for the overpriced paid subscription has provided me with the worst information on the Internet! Shame on you for selling such junk-that has apparently always been junk (my bad for skipping the reviews). Why don’t you go on your cell phones and actually try using your own product. Better yet, if you’re so proud of what you’ve built, find several novice investors and give them each $10,000 OF YOUR PERSONAL MONEY. They can keep anything they earn above that but owe you nothing if they lose! (I’ll be waiting anxiously to see that happen!) ~FELLOW TRADERS BEWARE~ ••• I tried out SwingTrader as instructed [MID BULL RUN] and I lost more in that single week than I had in 6 months of aggressive trading. BETTER OFF LETTING YOUR KIDS•PETS•PSYCHIC•ELDERLY RELATIVES... PICK YOUR TRADES! ### 1/5 — By the time the app loads data, the ship is sailed *2021-02-03, version 1.4.3* The trades are often posted after they have actually been closed out and profits have been taken. Waste of money. ### 3/5 — Love The Company hate the lack of iPad support *2021-01-05, version 1.4.3* The 1 downside is the delay in receiving the alerts. Today in fact I received an alert to buy at $64.50 and in the time it took to switch apps and set up the trade the volume popped and it was over $67. Third time this has happened and I’m on day 6-7 of my trial. Really wish native iPad support was available more so for the IBD app as it is an amazing service at a decent price. The research done is great! The cost compared to other swing trade services with similar results is about 30-50% higher. **If a package were offered to build a bundle or buy a two or three service deal at once and it was able to be purchased monthly or yearly (some can’t afford $500 right now) that would go a long way. I used another very well known service and after joining the main figurehead I was constantly offered the other services at 75-90% off if you chose 2 and paid upfront. Normal middle class investors are the target audience as none of us want to pay a broker but it is also a special time in the world and I know if I had a bundle with Marketsmith , Leaderboard etc... I would do everything in my power to purchase it. Keep up the great research and please think about the current economy and also the outdated tech - especially the maps on here and IBD are both very glitchy. Thank you! ### 3/5 — New update 12/20202 *2020-12-29, version 1.4.3* They fixed some of the bugs, but removed the trade calculator function which was one of the best parts of this app. Still good info and content, but far less helpful without the calculator function. ## Most critical reviews (10 lowest-rated) ### 1/5 — Not Fit For Purpose *2026-03-20* IBD products are no longer fit for purpose as CAN SLIM investment tools using William O’Neil’s methodology. SwingTrader is particularly poor - a fast way to lose money…. a sea of red. For example, the last 25 positions closed with 24 losing money, the solo winner gained a paltry 1.5% ### 1/5 — Trades on app 20 minutes late *2024-08-27* The app is slowed update trades. Sometimes it takes 10 to 20 minutes. You get notifications on the email 10 minutes before getting them on the app. in order to get the trades in a timely manner you have to check between the website the app if you use the VPN Jay Howard will cancel your account. ### 1/5 — Why Push Notifications missing Stock Symbol? *2024-05-31, version 1.4.6* way too many emails and push notifications that say "a new position was added in a stock." Always list the symbol in all alerts please! ### 1/5 — Money loser! Save your money *2024-04-21* The trading strategy that they use at IBD does not work for swing trading. Tried this app twice in two years, and lost money both times. Leaderboard might be better, but even that app wasn’t great. Save your money and stay away from this app. ### 1/5 — Soviet era tech *2023-02-16* This app is supposed to give you alerts on swing ideas by the geniuses at IBD. However multiple times during the day it kicks you out and logs you off without notice and you have to retype your password. It also slams this weird thing in your face where you have to hold your thumb on the screen to ‘prove’ that you are human, randomly throughout the day. Supposing the app hasn’t logged you out, when there is an alert, you have to play a game of where’s Waldo to actually see what the alert symbol is. It may take you 1 to 2 minutes of fiddling on the app and jumping from screen to screen to see what the genius idea from IBD is. The alerts are not timely if I’m getting them 2 minutes after it’s been sent. All this supposing there is actual value in their alerts. We’re not in 2020 anymore and you have to struggle to see a difference between performance of IBD swing ideas and a random basket of Nasdaq/S&P stocks. ### 1/5 — Lacks everything *2022-04-12* What a terrible app! Lacks basic functionality like notifications, easy navigation. The email button is not doing anything. ### 1/5 — Fix this app! *2022-02-09, version 1.4.4* I’m not sure why the issues with this app have not been addressed. Constantly logs you out and the “email us” link in the concierge doesn’t do anything.The last update was 11 months ago ### 1/5 — Does not get notifications *2022-02-03, version 1.4.4* The app does not provide notifications for the trade. It kinda of defeat a very big utility of having the app. ### 1/5 — Unusable *2022-01-26, version 1.4.4* Logs out all the time. Notifications not working. The only reason to have this app on your phone — completely useless otherwise. ### 1/5 — Not worth it *2021-11-17, version 1.4.4* Stocks they pick end up reversing most of the time without even hitting the 4% goal much less 5 or 10 %. ## Most praised reviews (10 highest-rated) ### 5/5 — “Passive Income” pays for itself 10 times over *2022-04-01* Awesome app. If you know how to manage your risk, this will consistently make you money without having to think. A great “passive” side gig! ### 5/5 — SwingTrader *2021-07-02* Good app ### 5/5 — very happy with swing trader!! *2021-05-24, version 1.4.4* although the return hasn’t been great we are holding in there and will hang another great year this year! ### 5/5 — So far so good *2020-04-21* Details of the trade set up is accurate because i learned the skill of trading first as a swing trader i always look at support and resistance to give me an indication of if to buy and sell and i compare that to the app and it’s spot on The first month is free and I’ve made a profit within the first week that paid for the app for a few months ### 5/5 — Great swing trading app *2020-01-31, version 1.3.1* I prefer do swing trading, if you want to make day trade, definitely give it a try. ### 5/5 — wonderful *2017-02-17* I have never seen such a beautiful app. ### 5/5 — It's here! *2016-12-27, version 1.0* I've used this product successfully since it launched in April. The email alerts and desktop notifications are great. Now with the app you get notifications within a couple minutes of the stock being added to the list so you can act right away and purchase in the optimal buy zone and make more $. Great addition IBD! ### 5/5 — So glad it's here! *2016-12-26, version 1.0* I've been a subscriber to SwingTrader for almost a year and have been waiting for this App. So easy to use and best part is I'll receive push notifications for all trades. Well done IBD! ### 4/5 — Two issues I’m dealing with *2021-08-12* First, The latest release keeps signing me off even though I check the “stay logged in” field. Please fix as this is causing delays with my trading. Second, on the older versions, when notifications were sent out, it would include the stock symbol and entry price point. That notification is no longer available and I have to get into the app to see the price points. Can you please add this feature back as it provided faster entry points for me. ### 3/5 — 不好用 *2024-02-22, version 1.4.6* 推送不及时，建仓完全不遵循CANSLIM理念。 --- *Data collected daily from the US App Store and indexed by [AppsHunter](https://appshunter.io/). User reviews are verbatim App Store reviews. Ratings, prices and chart positions refresh continuously; this snapshot is from 2026-08-12.*