Love your smartphone and want to use it more to help you manage your money? Here are the 8 best investment apps for beginners.
Maybe you want to leverage technology to help ease the stress of trading and investing. Or maybe you love money and technology, and you like to keep up with the latest…
Apps are changing how we deal with our money. And to highlight that, this post covers some apps that can help everyday traders and investors in a number of ways.
Read on to learn more about app-based investing…
Table of Contents
The 8 Best Investment Apps for Beginners (In No Particular Order)
Almost all of us have a smartphone now, and most of us probably have 50 or more apps downloaded.
There are tons of cool apps … you can order food from countless restaurants, hail a ride through a rideshare app, or translate text into another language at the click of a button. Seriously, there are apps that do all kinds of stuff.
But did you know that there are apps that have taken the historically boring and monotonous process of saving and investing money and simplified it for the average person?
Here are 8 apps tailored just for traders and investors:
TD Ameritrade Mobile
TD Ameritrade is one of the largest and most famous stockbrokers on the planet. And they’ve developed an impressive mobile app with an extensive list of features.
On the app, you can check stock prices, place trades, view research, and even watch some basic educational videos. And no matter which smartphone you use — Android, iOS, and Blackberry — you’re covered for this app.
But first, make sure that TD Ameritrade is the right broker for you. There are some upsides to a TD Ameritrade account, such as no minimum account requirements and great customer service, but there are definitely brokers with cheaper commissions.
Robinhood
Robinhood is a high-tech stock broker that’s famous for not charging clients commissions or trade fees.
Instead of charging commissions, the company makes its money from earning interest on cash that you hold in the account, premium account options, and interest on margin trades.
The app itself is really basic. It’s mainly focused on making trades and not much more. You can access some basic charting and trade stocks, ETFs, options, and even cryptocurrencies as well.
E-Trade Mobile
E-Trade is a major American-based stock brokerage firm and a long-time favorite option for many on the StocksToTrade team.
E-Trade is a large company … So they have the means to build a solid app for their customers. E-trade clients can place trades right from their smartphones.
On the app, you can trade a range of stocks, bonds, mutual funds, ETFs, options, and futures. The huge range of trading products can make this an appealing choice for active traders.
Acorns
Acorns is an app with an interesting way to help you save money while you manage your everyday lifestyle expenses.
You link the app to your credit or debit card. It then rounds up your purchase amounts to the nearest dollar and places that amount into an investment account.
FOR EXAMPLE: Say you buy a meal for $19.80 … The app will round up the amount to $20. That extra 20 cents goes into an automated investment account. Over time, these small, almost unnoticeable amounts can add up.
An Acorns account can cost as low as $1 per month. There’s no account minimum, and you can transfer lump sums of cash into the account if you like.
This can be an interesting option for those who struggle to save money — it’s basically an under-the-radar savings plan.
Stockpile
Now, how about a modern twist for investing in stocks?
Stockpile is a company that allows its clients to invest in fractions of shares, rather entire shares.
FOR EXAMPLE: To invest in Google, you’d need over $1,000 for one share. Don’t have that? You can use Stockpile to invest anywhere from $5 and up in a fraction of a share. It’s one way to participate in the company’s upside — even on a budget.
Stockpile’s app is streamlined but doesn’t have a ton of features. There are no monthly fees, and you pay just 99 cents per trade.
This app can be an option for those who don’t have much capital but want to start investing small amounts of money into stocks.
Stash
Stash is a company with the goal of helping beginners find promising stocks and ETFs.
Clients set their risk tolerance, goals, and values. The app can then suggest certain investment themes and related stocks or funds. It can be a beginner-friendly way to start investing.
In keeping with the beginner line, they allow a small minimum starting balance of just $5 and charge as little as $1 per month in fees.
Stash can be a solid offering for the absolute beginner who requires some hand-holding. Anyone past this stage might be better served elsewhere.
Ally
Ally is an online-only bank focused on providing great rates and low fees. The company can do so since it doesn’t fund brick-and-mortar branches like most typical banks.
Ally customers don’t pay monthly maintenance fees or have to maintain a minimum account balance. And both checking and interest-based savings accounts can pay higher rates than most other banks,
Ally provides free access to over 43,000 ATMs, that can make it easier to withdraw funds. But on the flip side, getting money into the Ally account can be difficult … You have to either wire transfer or send checks in through the mail. It may not be a great option if you regularly deposit actual cash into your account.
Betterment
Betterment is a company that offers streamlined investment options, depending on its clients’ goals.
FOR EXAMPLE: A client who’s close to retirement age may be looking for low-risk investments with a consistent yield income. Betterment’s systems and processes can help guide that client into appropriate investments — without the need for a human advisor.
Betterment is a large firm with over $15 billion under management. That allows them to offer a huge range of features. These features include things such as fractional share ownership tax strategy tools all for fees as low as 0.25% of your funds invested annually.
Betterment can be a promising choice for those looking for long-term, hands-off, well-diversified opportunities.
It’s definitely not for active traders or those looking to get involved in the exciting and potentially lucrative world of stock trading. If the daily hustle of the market is more your speed, read on to find out how to go about it…
Use StocksToTrade For All Your Active Trading Needs
Most of the apps mentioned above are for hands-off saving and investing.
That can be helpful for some people, but others will find it boring. Crave action? There’s a huge universe of opportunities in the stock market. First, you just need to start with the right education. And you need smart tools to help you find and place trades…
That’s what StocksToTrade does.
StocksToTrade is a top-of-the-line trading and research platform that has just about every tool and feature all in one place.
What tools am I talking about? Here’s just a few:
- Quickly scan over 18,000 stocks across all the major U.S. exchanges to help you find opportunities every trading day.
- Streamlined and elegant charting to help you track the price action and patterns of the stocks you follow.
- Paper trading features to help you build trading skills and test strategies without risking a cent.
- Broker integration so that you can place your trades with the click of a button right from the StocksToTrade platform.
- Track news, SEC filings, and social media buzz right on the platform to help you spot hot and trending stocks.
StocksToTrade is the number-one choice for many traders around the world, and there’s a big reason for that…
A lot of trading platforms are created by marketers and accountants who don’t actually trade in the markets that much.
But that’s not the case with StocksToTrade. Our platform was created by traders for traders. When our team started designing StocksToTrade, we envisioned it as the one-stop-shop for all our trading needs.
Ready to see what you can do in the stock market? Check out the tools some of the best traders use. Grab your 14-day trial of StocksToTrade for just $7 today!
Conclusion
Smartphones are changing the world — and how we handle money. By now, you should have a better idea of how companies use apps to help simplify investing for the average person.
I personally prefer to trade from my desktop. But I love that we live in a time where I can grab my smartphone and check stock prices or even make a trade. It’s like I’m really living in the future!
If you have a hard time saving money or don’t know what to do with it once you save it, there’s probably an app we listed here that can help you.
And if trading in the stock market is more your speed, take the time to invest in your market and trading education. And check out a premium trading platform to help you spot and track stocks that fit your criteria.
You can try StocksToTrade for 14-days for just $7. See why so many traders won’t start the trading day without our platform!
