Hello friends!
If you’re anything like me, you spend a lot of time on your phone (probably more than then we both should). Instead of spending mindless hours on Facebook or Instagram, over the past couple of years I’ve been trying to be more intentional about how I spend time on my phone. However, not all apps are a mindless waste of time.
Over the past couple of years, there are many investing and trading apps that have been making monumental gains (see what I did there? haha) in the personal investing market. Below are a few apps that I personally use.
- RobinHood – One of the first commission free trading apps to hit the app store back in 2013, Robinhood offers the ability for stock, ETF, and options trading. Robinhood is also in the process of rolling out cryptocurrency trading but is only available in a few U.S. states at the time of this article. With commission free trades, you may ask how Robinhood makes money? The answer is that Robinhood makes money on its margin trading service Robinhood Gold. It also collects interest on the user’s account balance much like a bank. Some features include:
- Trading fee: $0.00
- Account fees: No annual or ACH transfer fees
- Account minimum: $0.00
- Available for iPhone and Android
- Tradable securities: Stocks, ETFs, Options, Cryptocurrency
- M1 Finance – Much newer on the scene, M1 launched in 2016 and differentiates itself by offering the ability to buy fractional shares and smart rebalancing. M1 offers a brokerage/robo advisor hybrid. You invest with M1 by creating Pies where each stock or fund you choose represents a slice of that pie. M1 then automatically rebalances your account in order to keep your predefined allocations intact. Also, the ability to own a fractional share is very convenient. For example, if you wanted to own part of Amazon, but didn’t want to spend $1,939 to buy a whole share, you can set it so 5% of your investing pie owns Amazon. M1 makes money by selling order traffic flow and lending on securities. Some features include:
- Trading fee: $0.00
- Account fees: None
- Account minimum: $0.00
- Available for iPhone and Android
- Tradeable securities: Stocks and ETFs
- Betterment – Betterment has become a popular robo-advisor in recent years with over $11 billion in assets under management. While I still primarily use Robinhood and M1 Finance for my mobile investing needs, Betterment does offer a few tax harvesting strategies to help generate higher yields. Betterment offers two account types; Betterment Digital and Betterment Premium. Betterment Premium provides users with unlimited phone access to real financial advisors. Some features include:
- Account management fee: 0.25% for Betterment Digital and 0.40% for Betterment Premium
- Account minimum: $0.00 for Betterment Digital and $100,000 for Betterment Premium
- Investment expense ratio: 0.13% average ratio for ETFs
- Investments: ETFs from up to 12 asset classes as well as target income portfolios
- Acorns – Invest your spare change! Acorns is essentially a robo-advisor that helps you save and invest by automatically rounding up purchases on accounts you connect. This app makes spending a little less painful because everytime you swipe your card, you know you’re saving a small amount to invest. I generally don’t keep much money in Acorns, but I like that it automatically saves for me without me having to actively think about it. Some features include:
- Account management fee: $1/mo for taxable accounts; $2/mo for IRAs
- Account minimum: $0.00 to open but $5.00 to start investing
- Available for iPhone and Android
- Investments: ETFs from up to seven asset classes
- Stash – This app is largely meant for beginners who are wanting to learn about investing. I primarily use M1 Finance and Robinhood, but Stash might be a good app to start with if you want it to do a lot of the work for you. Some features include:
- Trading fee: $0.00
- Account subscription fee: $1/mo for accounts under $5,000 and 0.25% for accounts over $5,000
- Investment expense ratios: Average of 0.34% expense ratio
- Account minimum: $5.00
- Tradeable securities: >40 ETFs and 65 stocks
Note: Some of the above are affiliate links. Certainly just Google the apps yourself if you don’t want me to benefit at all. Either way, be sure to check the apps out for yourself!
All the best,
Andy
