Is Ally Invest a good online stock trading service?

Online stock trading is the new thing for those interested in investing their money in stocks via the internet. Online stock trading services allow anyone to try their luck on the stock market, from the comfort of their own home or office. All they need is a reliable device and to sign up for a specialized service.

Online stock trading services now offer user-friendly interfaces that can be grasped by any user and most of them also have mobile apps so you can check your stocks directly from your smartphone. This type of service is accessible to anyone who has access to the internet. Online stock trading can be one of the quickest ways to earn some good money, if you ‘play your stocks’ right.

Is Ally Invest a good online stock trading service to consider?

Ally Invest is one of the best budget-friendly brokers on the market right now. They are backed up by Ally Financial (bank company headquartered in Michigan). Ally Financial is in top 20 largest banks in the US.

Ally Invest is a versatile service that allows you to trade stocks, bonds, mutual funds, ETFs, Forex, options.

What are the features and fees of Ally Invest?

Cost

Ally Invest has some of the lowest costs in the industry, which makes this such a popular service. Ally Invest doesn’t require an account opening minimum and there are no hidden fees either.

Ally Invest charges only $4.95 per stock trade plus 65 cents per contract.

The mutual fund trade fee is $9.95 and the broker assisted trades fee is $20.

Ally Invest offers 116 free ETFs, which is a smaller number than you get with other competitors such as TD Ameritrade or Fidelity for instance. With TD Ameritrade you get 313 and with Fidelity, 500.

People who are inactive and make no trades that are commissioned in a 12-month period, will be charged an additional $50 as a penalty. Same goes for those who have an account with less than $2,500 in it.

Ally Invest is great for active traders because they benefit from generous discounts. Those who make 30 trades or more per quarter or have a balance of at least $100,000, get a discount of $3.95 per equity trade.

Features

The Ally Invest web-based platform is user-friendly and everything is accessible. You get real-time streaming quotes and the dashboard is customizable. Some of the included features are:

• Option Strategies
• Analytic Charts
• Automated Trading
• Forecasting

You can also download and use their mobile apps that are compatible with both iOS and Android devices. The apps come with charting capabilities (17 indicators), they offer streaming quotes and watchlists that refresh at approximately 5 seconds. One drawback of the mobile app is that there’s no way to transfer more money into your account from the mobile app, you have to access your account from a computer.

Overall, Ally Invest is definitely a budget-friendly option for stock traders. However, like any other low-cost service, there are some limitations in tools and capabilities, compared to the industry leaders.