From sleep tracking, to fitness motivating, to cat painting (yes you read that right) – there’s an app for just about anything.
So why should it be any different when it comes to investing?
These five best investing apps will help you put the power of investing in your pocket.
At Wall Street Survivor, we strive to equip our audience with the simplest and smartest path to financial knowledge and security.
Long gone are the days of communing at stock exchanges, paper trading, or even chaining yourself to a desktop computer in order to invest in the stock market.
In 2020, everyday investors use apps to buy and sell stocks, budget, manage their money, and learn about finance. And these best investment apps are here to help you get started!
So don’t worry, we’ve got you covered.
These next apps are the best in the investing game – and we don’t want you to miss out.
Oh, and if you’re specifically looking for stock brokers, we have an article for that too!
#1: Seeking Alpha: Best Investing App for Research and Analysis
Seeking Alpha is the app with the stock screener and investing tools that any investor can use to their advantage.
If you want advanced tools that will help you filter out stocks you don’t want or chart a stock’s technical performance, Seeking Alpha has you covered.
And if you want a list of stocks that the experts think is going to perform well so you don’t have to do all the work, you’re still in the right place.
The goal of seeking Alpha is to help fundamental investors share and find new ideas while connecting with other investors.
It’s an investing research platform started in 2004 by financial analyst David Jackson.
The original concept was simple: let investors that are passionate about the stock market share their own stock analysis and debate the merits of each stock so they can become more informed investors.
They now call themselves “the world’s largest investing community.”
Once you register as a free member, you can follow all the published analysis and commentary on your selected stocks; or you can choose to follow certain authors.
They have over 7,000 active authors who publish 10,000 stock analysis and ideas monthly.
It’s not just a place to read stock articles, though; they have plenty of tools that you can have at your disposal.
The Top Rated Stocks screener is a feature available to Premium subscribers that lets you screen for the stocks with the best Seeking Alpha author ratings, Wall Street ratings, and Quant ratings all in one place, along with analyst ratings are factor grades for valuation, growth, profitability, and momentum, as well as EPS revisions.
With a Premium subscription to Seeking Alpha, you get access to over 1 million investing ideas and earnings call transcripts and audio on stocks that aren’t covered anywhere else.
Seeking Alpha also has a Quant (or quantitative analysis) feature that evaluates stocks using an algorithm. The performance of the Quant system has been absolutely stellar.
Their “Very Bullish” ranked stocks (the highest rank) have a total return of 1,754% compared to the S&P 500 return of 385%.
And their “Very Bearish” stocks (the lowest rank) have underperformed the S&P 500 by over 300%.
#2: Round: Best All-Around Investing App
With Round, there are 4 steps to kick off your portfolio with this investment app.
Step 1: You start your Round experience with a questionnaire to better understand your risk tolerance, timeline, and goals.
Step 2: Based on what you desire for your financial needs Round will create a mix of world-class investors to give you investment advice and help grow your portfolio.
Step 3: Now that you have a representative for your portfolio, they will manage your investments every single day in areas more than just the basic stocks, bonds, and mutual funds.
Step 4: Your fund manager will adapt and change as the market evolves to ensure the best course of action for your money.
Round separates themselves from the rest of their competitors as they provide access to real fund managers rather than using a robo investor like other products today.
So what does this deliver?
Active investing, an adaptive portfolio to avoid negative risks, sophisticated investment strategies, and waived account fees if your returns are negative.
With a lot of fee-free options out there it is important to recognize some of the cons of Round.
First, it does have a monthly fee based on a .05% annual fee.
The bonus is you will get the monthly fee waived if your returns were negative for the month.
Overall, the positives of having a fund manager, a special portfolio created for you, available customer support, and you only pay the trading fees when you generate returns; these outweigh the biggest con of a .05% fee that can add up month after month.
#3: Robinhood: Our Favorite Investment App for Beginners
Robinhood has completely changed the game for the investing world.
Just like many industry disruptors we have seen in the last ten year, think AirBnB, Uber, Tesla, and so on, Robinhood has transformed the access to investing and the revenue model for investing brokerages.
With Robinhood:
- you no longer need $1,000 or more to open a brokerage account.
- you no longer need to pay commissions (fees for selling or buying stocks).
- you can now buy fractions of stock shares instead of having to pay the full share price.
- you can dollar-cost average by setting up recurring investments through the Robinhood app.
- you can get free stocks worth between $2.50 and $225 for you and your friends when you meet the signup conditions!
These risky innovations have totally paid off for Robinhood, and they have led other brokerages to follow in their footsteps. Robinhood has become the fastest-growing investment app in the United States.
They now have over 10 million users – a massive accomplishment for an investing app!
More on our favorite investment app for beginners…
Robinhood changed the investing app game by allowing everyday investors to open an investment account with no account minimum and start buying shares without paying a fee for every single trade.
Robinhood started with just an iOS app but then quickly announced an Android version, as well. The app allows users to invest in U.S. stocks, exchange traded funds (ETFs), options, and cryptocurrencies – which most investment apps don’t offer.
Robinhood also offers the Robinhood Gold account which is a premium account that allows you to trade on margin. But beginning investors don’t need to worry about that or pay for that.
So, what makes Robinhood so popular?
Robinhood is famous for its commission-free trading, easy application process, and intuitive mobile platform.
Robinhood led the charge in commission-free trading, leading almost all of their competitors to drop account fees for buying and selling stocks.
But today, Robinhood stands out for an impeccable user experience, a growing range of financial services, and features that give beginning investors the tools they need to start investing, such as:
- $0 Account Minimum
- $0 Commissions for trading stocks, ETFs, options, or cryptocurrencies
- Fractional Shares
- Recurring Investments
- Free Stocks worth between $2.50 and $225 when you sign up and invite friends!
Additionally, Robinhood offers instant deposits, high-yield savings through their cash management account, and easy-to-read research and analysis, which is why it’s one of the best investment apps for stocks.
Robinhood has earned its spot as our best investment app for beginners because their app makes investing in the market simple for those investors that are just starting out.
The user experience is simple, yet Robinhood still offers users over 5,000 stocks and over 500 ETFs. However, Robinhood does not currently offer mutual funds, options, bonds, and a few other securities.
These benefits easily place Robinhood as one of our favorite investing apps, especially if you are just getting started in investing.
Bonus tip: Robinhood is giving away a FREE STOCK (between $2.50 and $225 in value) to anyone who opens a new account and meets the signup conditions. Just click on the promo image below!
Then, once you open and fund your account with at least $10, you can receive more free stock (again between $2.50 and $225 in value) for referring your friends and family!
The more people you refer, the more free stock you can get – up to $500 in free stocks! Click on this promo below to start your Robinhood account application and get your first FREE stock…..
#4: Acorns: Best Robo-Advisor for Beginners
Acorns is a revolutionary app that makes saving and investing money much easier.
If you’re having trouble saving up enough money to feel like it’s worth investing, Acorns can help!
Acorns offers a variety of services that allow for a great connection from spending to investing.
There are three main services Acorns offers: banking services (i.e. debit cards), securities investments (i.e. stocks and ETFs), and retirement savings accounts.
You gain access to these services through Acorns’ tiered subscription model, which starts at $3 per month and ranges to $5 per month.
Which is fairly low compared to other investment services offered.
The biggest benefit to Acorns is how easy it makes investing.
For people who have not had much exposure to the stock market, or long term investing, or people who have not been exposed to the idea of saving and effective strategies, Acorns makes it incredibly easy to start.
Acorns provides an effective way to start saving, while learning about investments and the market as a whole. So here is how it works. For $3 a month Acorns will begin investing money for you.
You will take a questionnaire so Acorns can best set up your investment strategy and the securities you should be investing in.
Then on every purchase you make with your bank account or credit card, Acorns will take the spare change from that transaction, round it up to the nearest dollar, and place it in your investment portfolio.
So if you go to the store and buy a coke for $2.50 then Acorns will round the “spare change” from your purchase to $3.00 and invest the additional $0.50 in your portfolio for you!
These automated investment techniques are great to keep investors honest and in line with their long term strategies.
If you want to open a retirement account, Acorns is a great place to start, as they offer traditional and Roth IRAs.
You can also open investment account for your kids with UTMAs / UGMAs.
Acorns stands out as they began the trend of “Robo-Investing”, which is automated investment strategies.
Acorns has also been making moves in the socially responsible investing (SRI) space, which lets users invest in companies that align with their values.
If these automated investment techniques could help you, open an account with Acorns today!
#5: eToro: Best Investing App for Cryptocurrency
eToro is a social trading platform that allows users to trade stocks and cryptocurrencies, as well as keep up with the investing strategies and patterns of other users.
The company is based in Tel-Aviv, Israel, and its CEO is Yoni Assia.
The platform has over 33 million registered users in over 140 countries.
Some of the best eToro features include the ability to trade different asset classes, copy top traders’ portfolios, and trade virtual currency for practice.
You can trade stocks commission-free, invest in ETFs (currently only available in 44 states), and trade over 40 cryptocurrencies for a reasonable price.
Perhaps the main attraction of eToro is the social investing aspect.
The “copy trading” feature lets you automatically replicate another investor’s strategy or portfolio at the click of a button.
You can look at how top investors are trading, and what securities they’re fans of right now.
The platform is essentially bridging investing and social media!
Pro tip: If you are thinking about signing up for eToro, do it now. For a limited time only, eToro is giving away $10 when you sign up and start trading crypto!
#6: M1 Finance: Best Investing App for Experienced Investors
M1 Finance is a financial services company that offers brokerage accounts, a cash management program, and margin trading.
The platform uses a unique portfolio construction system centered around “pies” that gives you total control of how your portfolio looks.
You can create and name your own pies, or choose from M1 Finance’s selection of Expert Pies.
The Expert Pies include everything from saving for retirement, to socially responsible investing (SRI), to mimicking a hedge fund’s investments at a fraction of the cost.
M1 Finance is a great platform for intermediate and advanced investors who have a little bit of stock market experience under their belt and feel ready to create their own portfolios without the help of a robo-advisor or stock picker.
Of course, you can always copy one of the Expert Pies if you’re looking for a more hands-off experience.
M1 was also designed with fundamental investors in mind and is not a platform for day traders.
You can only place trades during certain windows of time.
As a standard M1 user, you can place trades during the 9:30am window.
If you sign up for M1 Plus, you also get access to the 3:00pm window.
M1 Finance is completely free to use, but their paid premium service, M1 Plus, gives you access to special perks like extended trading windows and better margin and interest rates.
Some of the other features on M1 on top of the investing tools are margin trading, a cash management program, and a credit card that gives you cash back to be invested in your favorite companies in your M1 account.
You can read our full M1 Finance review by clicking the button above, or read another article: is M1 Finance Safe?
Thinking about Coinbase? Read our Is Coinbase Safe article!
Conclusion
Overall, after reviewing the list of the five best investment apps, the key takeaway should be there are a variety of high quality apps out there to meet various investors’ differing needs.
Every person has different investment goals, and so each should have different investment apps to help meet those!
For example we have Robinhood that is tailored towards trading securities or we have Wealthfront that simplifies the investment experience.
Also, we discussed an app like SoFi that could be used for all aspects of finance, from loans, to banking, to investing.
It is important that you find the best app for you, as each of these stock investing apps will meet different needs.
That wraps up our list of the best investment apps of 2022!
We hope these apps can help you on your personal investing journey and that you’ll take advantage of the power at your fingertips!
So, what did you think of our list of the best investing apps? Comment down below what your favorite investment apps are and how you’re using them to conquer your financial future.
If you want to see another list of our favorite financial tools, check out our roundup of the best HSA accounts!
eToro Disclosure
Securities trading offered by eToro USA Securities, Inc. (“the BD”), member ofFINRA andSIPC. Cryptocurrency offered by eToro USA LLC (“the MSB”) (NMLS: 1769299) and is not FDIC or SIPC insured. Investing involves risk, and content is provided for educational purposes only, does not imply a recommendation, and is not a guarantee of future performance. [website domain name] is not an affiliate and may be compensated if you access certain products or services offered by the MSB and/or the BD.
The $10 bonus is only applicable for US users.