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7 Best Stock Trading Apps of November 2024

The Ascent, a Motley Fool service, does not cover all offers on the market. The Motley Fool Ascent is 100% owned and operated by The Motley Fool. Nathan Alderman has worked with The Motley Fool since 2005, making errors his arch-enemies in a variety of roles including a six-year stint as the dedicated fact-checker for The Motley Fool’s premium newsletter services. As The Ascent’s Compliance Lead, mobile trading application he makes sure that all the site’s information is accurate and up to date, which ensures we always steer readers right and keeps various financial partners happy. A graduate of Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism, Nathan spends his spare time volunteering for civic causes, writing and podcasting for fun, adoring his wife, and wrangling his two very large young children.

Step 2: Determine How Much You Can Afford to Invest

NerdWallet, Inc. does not offer advisory or brokerage services, nor does it recommend or advise investors to buy or sell particular stocks, securities or other investments. Get a more personal edge with Capital.com’s https://www.xcritical.com/ personalized AI-driven app, which provides you with all the news and guidance you need to ensure your investments mature and grow. Capital.com has access to a huge amount of investment areas, including more than 5,000 markets, cryptocurrencies, and commodities. You’ll also get real-time tracking of your investment, instant withdrawals, zero commissions, and no inactivity fee, so you can be as active or passive as you’d like.

Our picks of the best stock trading apps for beginners, options traders, hands-off investors and more.

Past performance, whether actual or indicated by historical tests of strategies, is no guarantee of future performance or success. View the document titled Characteristics and Risks of Standardized Options. Before trading any asset class, customers must read the relevant risk disclosure statements on our Agreements and Disclosures page. System access and trade placement and execution may be delayed or fail due to market volatility and volume, quote delays, system and software errors, Internet traffic, outages and other factors. New investors can also experiment with trading methods without spending real money to learn how everything works.

Best Full-Service Investing App: Fidelity

There’s no minimum amount, so you can start with whatever you want, and there’s no waiting period. Trade U.S. stocks, cryptocurrency, and commodities, and learn how to trade as you go, thanks to Robinhood’s personalized feedback and recommendations. Do you intend to take a buy-and-hold approach or do you want to day trade and play the markets? Some apps offer more advanced research and charting tools, but that’s likely to be too much white noise if you’re only interested in buying and holding a few index funds. You get access to a variety of investments with the industry-standard no commission for stock and ETF trades plus a low $0.50 commission for options contracts.

• TradeUP offers attractive incentives to new investors, friend referrals, and account transfers as part of their commitment to creating a vibrant investor community.
• Like the other apps on this list, Robinhood also has no minimums to open an account and users don’t need to reach a minimum to start investing, either.
• Investors with a balance of $100,000 can upgrade to the premium plan, which gives you access to real-life financial advisors for an annual fee of 0.40% of your fund balance.
• Nonetheless, this is a simple guide to understanding how to manage a portfolio, how trading works, and what to invest in.
• Some of the most popular financial apps are budgeting and expense tracking apps, and we review these separately from our investment app reviews.
• We primarily focus on fees, available assets, and user experience; however, we also take into account features like research, education, tax-loss harvesting, and customer service.

BEST MOBILE STOCK TRADING APPS COMPARISON

In many ways, it’s the ultimate culmination of fast, easy diversification. You choose from dozens of themed portfolios or create your own custom portfolio. Then, you can set up recurring deposits into these for however much you want (i.e., $5 weekly or $500 daily).

She previously wrote The Penny Hoarder’s syndicated “Dear Penny” personal finance advice column. With SoFi, you can invest in IPOs, hold them, and monitor their value. If you have a well-established portfolio elsewhere, but want IPO access without transferring all your assets, SoFi is a suitable choice. You need to clearly define your investing timeframe and financial objectives. Shorter-term goals may include saving $100,000 over the next five years for a down payment on a house, while long-term goals might involve aiming to have $1,000,000 saved for retirement 30 years down the road.

A good way to accomplish that is by reading reputable financial news. Keep learning more about the markets – you can even practice with tools like stock simulators. Adjust your portfolio to keep it aligned with evolving financial goals and market conditions. Do your best to choose stocks that align with your risk tolerance and investment goals. Newer investors may favor blue-chip stocks, dividend stocks, or ETFs, and pursue a more conservative, diversified approach. Regardless of your experience level, focus on long-term growth and stability rather than attempting to time the market for quick gains.

Price is a big factor when choosing an investment app, so it’s crucial you know what you’re paying for. After all, any costs or fees you aren’t aware of can eat away at your investment earnings over time. You can also set up a recurring transfer (daily, weekly or monthly) from your linked bank account to your Acorns investment accounts starting at as little as $5 a month.

We also look for a fluid user experience moving between mobile and desktop platforms, where offered. Our writers maintained active, funded online brokerage accounts for testing. Having covered the brokerage industry for over a decade, I have seen stock trading apps evolve from basic watch lists to fully functioning stand-alone trading platforms. Now the focus has shifted to making stock apps easy to use while still offering features that can satisfy the most demanding investors.

Many, or all, of the products featured on this page are from our advertising partners who compensate us when you take certain actions on our website or click to take an action on their website. As part of our data check process, we sent a data profile link to each broker summarizing the data we had on file and the data they provided us last year, with a field for entering any data that had since changed. For the brokers that filled out these profiles, we audited the information for any discrepancies between our data and the broker’s data to ensure accuracy. Introducing the new and improved FXTM Trader app – the perfect way to trade online, anywhere, straight from your phone.

Assess your personal finances and determine how much money you can safely invest without putting yourself in a financially vulnerable position. Before investing, prioritize building an emergency fund, paying off high-interest debt, and creating a budget. Choosing the right investment app that fits your needs is critical to you reaching your financial goals. Cost, functionality, and your particular trading style are all important considerations when making your decision. As part of our review process, all brokers had the opportunity to provide updates and key milestones in a live meeting that took place in the fall.

Begin with a small investment to get comfortable with the app’s functionality. You should also learn by using the paper trading function that many of the top platforms now offer. From there, as your confidence and experience start to build, begin to increase your investments gradually. As part of Investopedia’s 2024 Best Robo-Advisor awards, we chose Wealthfront as our best overall pick, as well as best for portfolio management, best for portfolio construction, and best for goal planning. It is also our choice for best automated investing app because of how it delivers these best-in-class elements, and so much more, to investors on thoughtfully designed iOS and Android apps that are on par with the desktop experience.

Having been available on handheld devices for years, those choosing to use the the MT4 app do so with a platform has already been user-tested by millions of traders. It’s robust, reliable, and packed full of powerful software indicators. Merrill Edge® Self-Directed is a great option to consider not only for users of Bank of America (which it is a part of), but also those who are looking to invest and bank under one roof and with a highly capable app. Robin Hartill, CFP®, is The Ascent’s Head of Product Ratings and has worked for The Motley Fool since 2020. Her work has appeared in various national publications, including Yahoo! Finance, NerdWallet, Investopedia, CNN Underscored, MSNBC, USA Today, and CNET Money.

Traders can quickly assess stocks using analyst ratings, price targets, quant ratings and technical summary scores. Moomoo’s capable trading app offers advanced, customizable charting and free access to pro-grade tools such as analyst ratings, real-time Level 2 market data and short sale analysis. Track market capital flow to help time transactions, view position cost distribution and other technical indicators and use Moomoo’s Indicator Sentiment for a quick view of the overall status of all technical indicators. This makes SoFi an attractive option for those seeking simplicity and comprehensive financial management. Robinhood was the first on the investing app scene to charge no commission for users to buy and sell stocks, which prompted many other brokerages to eventually follow suit. Like the other apps on this list, Robinhood also has no minimums to open an account and users don’t need to reach a minimum to start investing, either.

It accommodates day traders looking to run scalping strategies as well as investors with a longer-term approach. The total number of stocks available to trade is enough for most traders, especially those who are happy to trade off total number of markets available against gaining access to high-quality trade execution. Charles Schwab is also one of the few free trading apps that allows customers to trade stocks on foreign markets, with more than 30 global markets currently available. Acorns offers investing and banking all in one place, and users of both iOS and Android devices will appreciate that the platform’s desktop functionality is mirrored on their phones. The Acorns app makes it easy to perform common tasks like setting up an account, making changes to your account, and utilizing the Round-Ups feature to automatically round up purchases to the next dollar and invest the leftover change.

To find the best app for stock trading, I compared trading apps from 17 brokers side by side. My testing uncovered some interesting differences in both the user experience and features – such as ease-of-use and the available trading tools – which I’ll break down below. For example, Merrill Edge’s app takes an entirely different approach to sharing stock data than, say, Interactive Brokers, but Interactive Brokers has three apps to choose from. Charles Schwab’s platform offers stocks, ETFs, bonds, options, mutual funds, foreign exchange, futures, and CDs for investors, all in one free trading app.