Best Investment Apps- Our Recommended Stock Trading Platforms

Daniel Penzing
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Our Recommended Investment Apps

When we are investing in the stock market or looking for good investment opportunities, these apps can be extremely handy! They can be used for free or relatively inexpensively to help you manage your investment portfolio or look for investment opportunities.

Some of the best investment apps that we like to use are:

  • Stock portfolios: These are tracking tools that run on your mobile devices or laptop computers. They keep track of your investment performance, keep close track of your transaction history and make record keeping easier. We like to use Mobile Trader from CMC Markets and also Tab Trader Pro for our stock and commodities trading needs.
  • Trading Signals: These apps provide you with trade ideas each day that might be worth checking out. They will provide you with an overview that explains whether the trade idea is high reward or high risk. They will provide you with more information depending on how much you’re willing to pay for the information!
  • Charting Apps: These are great tools because they provide you with the ability to analyze the historical price action of stocks. There is really no better way to understand a stock or a stock market than to look at the chart. Through the charts, you can see whether a stock has the ability to go up in the short term or the long term. A great charting app that we like to use is TC2000.

Best Overall Investment App – Ally Invest

Ally is a superb app with a lot of appealing features.

It gives investors access to loads of investment products spread across several categories including stocks, ETFs, bonds, futures, and options. There are plenty of advanced features that can help you analyze investments and help you decide which ones to buy. Lastly, there are plenty of investment education tools to help you learn more about investment options.

All in all, Ally is a good choice if you are looking for an investment app because it gives you plenty of ways to actively invest and help you maximize your returns.

Best Personal Finance Software for Investing – Personal Capital

Personal Capital is one of the best investment apps I have come across in a while. It is just full of features that make managing a portfolio of individual stocks and funds so much easier.

While it does charge a fee if you want all these features, it is totally free for a limited time to all users, you only need to create a user account and their will be no further charges.

Here are some of the things you can do with Personal Capital.

View All Your Investment Accounts in One Place to Easily Track and Manage Them

View and understand your overall net worth, it’s strong points as well as it’s weak points:

Set your financial goals, create a plan to get there.

Get a birds eye view of your retirement portfolio, and when you may be likely to reach your goal.

If you having trouble with you finances or simply want to keep a better track of them, Personal Capital is worth checking out.

For the full feature list/tutorials on the software all you have to do is visit their website and set up a free account.

Best Investing App for Beginners – Betterment

Almost everyone in the world wants that extra edge, or that ‘big win’ where you gain a lot of wealth overnight. While it’s completely possible to make a fortune quickly, most of us don’t have the luck or skill required to play the lottery or scratch off a winning ticket. That doesn’t mean that you can’t get rich quick, just that you don’t want to be playing the lottery either.

A much better strategy for making money quickly is to invest your money in the stock market. Even though many of us think the stock market is scary and too risky, it’s actually quite easy to make money investing in the stock market. But how can you make money investing in the stock market without the risk of losing a large amount of money? With a robo advisor, you can invest in the stock market without a risk because your investment is automatically placed in an investment portfolio that suits your goals and risk tolerance. A robo advisor is a computer program that automatically manages your investments based on stock market activity.

Best Stock Trading App for Beginners – Public.com

If you are living in the modern time, then I am obviously talking to you. Nobody is immune to constant online connectivity, nor can we (I) afford to ignore it. But, if you are a stock trader, then investing in stock market is a must.

If you want to trade stocks in stock market then you need to have a stock trading app. I have used many stock trading apps and based on my research, I have found three good stock trading apps for beginners.

Best Budgeting App – YNAB

The YNAB (You Need a Budget) app takes the concept of budgeting and simplifies it for anyone who wants to gain more control over their finances. Some budgeting apps only focus on numbers and require too much data entry. YNAB takes a different approach. The app has predefined expense categories you can select from. The category names are descriptive and simple to understand such as Meals & Entertainment. The time-saving feature of the YNAB app is the ability to categorize your transactions from your bank account with one tap. The app also has several automations and insights that will help you get out of debt and save more money.

The YNAB app is available for Android, iOS, and Apple Watch.

Best Microsavings Service – Acorns

Best Broker for Experienced Traders – E*TRADE

E*Trade is a pioneer in online trading. As a pioneer in the online trading industry, E*Trade was the first brokerage to offer the ability to trade online 24 hours a day back in 1996.

Since then, the company has continued to dominate the online brokerage space.

E*Trade has developed a strong business based on two factors: technological innovation and quality customer service. In the late 1980s, E*Trade was one of the first to offer telephone trading. In the 1990s, the company revolutionized online trading with its online stock trading platform. Today, the company is continuing to lead innovation. In 2016, E*Trade was named the first recipient of the FinTech Honor Roll by the United States FinTech Hub.

When it comes to cost, E*Trade offers good value on trading commissions. The company subsidizes all trades made by customers who maintain a minimum balance in their E*Trade accounts.

E-Trade does not charge per-share trades. Instead, it charges a flat rate depending on the amount of assets the customer trades each month. On top of that, E*Trade offers very low fees on mutual fund trades.

Moreover, E*Trade doesn’t offer a free trading platform, but it does offer a wide range of tools, technical analysis, and charting capabilities. Moreover, those tools are very affordable.

Best Investment Research – Morningstar

Best Paper Trading App – Webull

Is a must-have for virtual stock trading.

I remember when I first started trading.

Before I knew it, I found myself in retirement at the age of 30!

Back then, I had a lot on my mind.

How can I retire so young?

How can I make sure that I’m not going to get burned by the stock market?

The truth is, I knew I wanted to be financially independent by the time I was 30.

But I wasn’t sure how to make it happen.

I had no experience. No experience meant no results. No results? No money. To complicate matters, I had to plan for my family’s financial security. That meant I needed some serious cash!

Fast forward to today. Unfortunately, I can’t tell you how to retire at 30.

But I can tell you how to make a decent profit by trading stocks online!

I’ve personally used these apps for paper trading. And I don’t want to share these secret apps with too many people, because I sell paper trading tips here.

So here’s my list of best stocks trading apps for paper trading.

Best Active Trading App – Round

1: Robinhood vs E*Trade

Round one of this battle goes to Robinhood.

Robinhood may be limited in its advanced stock trading features, but with built-in dollar cost averaging and the ability to trade on margin, it’s one of the most useful app-based stock trading platforms to help you grow your investment account.

The Platform Is Extremely User-Friendly and Won’t Overwhelm You with Unnecessary Complications …

Let’s compare Robinhood’s stock trading education with E*Trades’. Robinhood clearly has the upper hand here as it provides a ton of great educational resources for new and experienced investors alike. By providing resources like quizzes, webinars, and articles, Robinhood makes it easy for investors to learn how to trade the stock market and grow their portfolio without needing to pay for professional advice.

For those interested in learning more about how to trade options and futures, refer to our ultimate guide to stock options here.

Robinhood will appeal to beginners just getting started with stock trading. The platform offers a lot of value for a relatively low minimum deposit. It’s one of the best investment apps for trading stocks for beginner investors who don’t have a stable income stream.

Best for Trading On The Go – ZacksTrade

Another very convenient feature of the ZacksTrade app for stock trading is the mobile platform. ZacksTrade actually only supports two mobile devices: the Apple iPhone (the app is absent from the Apple app store, so you have to get it from their website), and Android phones running version 4.0 or higher.

Testing it on both an iPhone 5s (iOS 8.4) and an Android Samsung Galaxy S5 smartphone running Android 5.0.2, the ZacksTrade app was easy to use and had a clean interface. All the features you could want in a stock trading platform are there including easy-to-read stock charts.

There are two modes of buying and selling stocks: as an individual and as an agent. When you buy as an individual, the app allows you to create watch lists of stocks, monitor your portfolio, and even get news alerts.

When you buy as an agent, the app basically acts as your stock broker. It will execute trades based on your instructions and buy/sell shares for you. No matter which mode you use, you’re still protected because the app has an investor education center that covers topics like risk management.

ZacksTrade also offers 7 great features that you won’t find on any other stock trading app:

IQATrader (ranked 8.5 out of 10 from 4 ratings)

This app isn’t designed to trade stocks, but it has all the basic features you would use for day trading. This app functions great on both the iPad and the iPhone and gives you a real-time market update.

Plus, it will send you updates on stocks throughout the trading day, which is something no other stock trading app does. If you decide to trade stocks from your iPhone, this is the app for you. It’s available on the Apple App Store.

This app is rated 5 out of 5 from 8 ratings.

Robinhood (ranked 8.2 out of 10 from 15 ratings)

Robinhood is great for people who only want to trade stocks and don’t want the added features that you’ll see on more advanced apps. It’s very clean, easy-to-use and free for people who only want to trade stocks.

If you are new to the stock market, Robinhood makes the learning process easy with a plethora of educational tools and videos.

You can download this app if you have an iPhone, iPad and Android devices, and the stock trading is free with zero fees.

This app is rated 3.5 out of 5 from 53 ratings.