Buy me £50 of Apple stock

"Buy me £50 of Apple stock."

I typed that out the other day. I could have spoken it, but I was at the keyboard.

My agent worked out that this meant picking up my Trading 212 API, checking prices, confirming, then executing the trade. It did exactly that. Checked the share price, returned it to me, and asked me to confirm.

"Yes," I typed.

Executed. Two seconds later the transaction was done.

That, dear reader, is how I want things.

"Do you want me to DCA it, say, once a week?" it then prompted. Dollar-cost-average.

"Yes."

I hadn't necessarily thought of doing that. I used to do it a lot with Apple, and a whole load of other stocks, but it hadn't crossed my mind. A weekly recurring order was set up in another two seconds. Then it set up a daily reminder to keep me updated on the portfolio value.

Now, I recognise there are real risks here. Hack into the specific server I'm experimenting with and you might be able to redirect the £200 I've deposited to test the realities of trading via an agent. In case anyone's wondering about the apparently cavalier approach: my actual investments are managed in a very different manner.

The point of testing like this is that I didn't want to wait for the mainstream to catch up. Like many others, I wanted to see what it was like to work with an agent to trade. I haven't done anything as complex as some colleagues, who are already pitting various models against each other to see which can make the most.

I found the whole experience strangely boring.

I issued the command. The API string was compiled and sent within a second, and Trading 212 confirmed the instruction almost instantly. Done. No silly, laborious, very frustrating interfaces to wade or tap through.

That "boring" is the finding. When an interaction that used to involve an app, a login, a search, a confirmation screen and three taps collapses into one sentence and a yes, the interface stops being the product. Which should be a fairly uncomfortable thought for anyone whose competitive advantage is their app.

Thanks to the team at Trading 212 for building the API. If you're experimenting yourself, my recommendation is to test first with the demo API they've put together.