Ally Invest Review

Hailey By: Hailey | Last updated June 22, 2017

ally invest logo online stock trading

9.3 / 10

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PROS:

  • Fixed fee
  • Featured Rookie Strategy feature
  • Mobile App

CONS:

  • No simulated trading option
  • Low customization of the online platform
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SUMMARY:

Ally Invest is among the best online stock trading companies you can choose. It offers transparent pricing with fixed rate fees so you never have to worry about being overcharged. Although it doesn’t have a simulated trading option, its education center offers an admirable number of useful guides, tutorials, how-to videos and a FAQ. The Featured Rookie Strategy is a great opportunity for novice traders to learn more about investing. Ally Invest has many tools and features optimized to suit both seasoned and new traders.

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COMPLETE REVIEW

Ally Invest is one of the best online stock trading platforms in our review. It offers many different trading opportunities to develop your portfolio. The company has a variety of charts, glyphs and other investment tools you can use to fully manage your account. The learning center has many different ways you can find out more about the platform and how to improve certain aspects of trading. The site also hosts an active trading network you can use to connect with other traders and maybe find out something useful.

Interface and Features

Ally Invest is an online based trading solution. The platform is intuitive and very easy to use. The layout on the website is well designed and all options the platform offers are easily accessible. Although the platform is easy to navigate, the layout is rather static and there aren’t too many customizing changes you can make. For example, while you can move around sections, you can’t create watch lists or other similar widgets. The resources are, nevertheless, located on the same site as the platform. Here you can find a wide variety of tools and features to make investing and trading easier. These tools give you higher command over your account and help you make better investment choices. They also give you a better overview of the fluctuations on the current market. The market stats give you a live, or a historical view of a certain stock and its standing. The snapshot feature captures pictures of the market movements, while the charts show the average of every stock in the past 200 days. To further help you make the right investment choice, the software shows you detailed company profiles and financial details of the companies you’re interested in. This feature shows you the specific company’s profit margins, returns on assets and businesses and more. You can monitor all this information and even get streaming quotes, all in real time. To make sure you’re making the most out of each trade, or investment, All Invest offers many ways of doing tech analysis and checking research reports all put down in a chart so you can work with the complete information more easily. You can also choose to see an interactive chart based on one of the reports for a more immersive overview.

Ally Invest offers an app that is compatible with both Android and iOS devices. The app maintains the full functionality of the online platform which means you can create charts, make watch lists, alerts or option chains while on the go. The trading is also present, but somewhat simplified though you can still make standard sales of stock or single/multi-leg options. There is one drawback, however, there’s no way to transfer more money into your account from the mobile app. To do this, you’ll have to access your account from a computer.

Features:

  • Option Strategies
  • Analytic Charts
  • Automated Trading
  • Forecasting
  • Mobile App
Pricing

Ally Invest has a $4.95 fee for stock/ETF/options trading. The amazing thing is that the fee is fixed which means you don’t have a limit on how much you have to trade in order to pay the specified price. When you trade options, each trade is charged with a $0.65 fee, while an option exercise would be $9.95 and an assignment $4.95. To get broker assistance, you’re going to have to set aside another $20. Also, in case you’re inactive and make no trades that are commissioned in a 12-month period, or if your account has less than $2500, you will be charged an additional $50 as a penalty. When it comes to margin interests, Ally Invest comes in average starting with 9.25 percent (under $5000) and going as low as 5.5 percent (over $500,000).

Help/Support

Phone number: 1-855-880-2559

Website: www.ally.com/invest

Support: www.ally.com/help/invest/

Facebook: www.facebook.com/ally

The learning and education page of the Ally Invest's website is a great place to learn more about the platform and ways to improve your trading. The page is searchable and it offers categorized views which means you can filter the content according to your expertise and interests.

There are multiple guides that are short, but educational and provide an abundance of useful information on buying/selling stocks online. An important feature of the education center is the Featured Rookie Strategy section you should make sure to check out if you’re just getting into online trading. This feature is set up to break down and explain in detail how investment strategies work and which to use at which time. Although it’s meant for novice users, the feature can also be helpful to veteran traders who wish to familiarize themselves with the novelties in the business. One thing Ally Invest is missing Is the online trading simulator which would help beginner traders test out the platform, its tools and different strategies in a safe environment, before using their own funds.

If at any moment you need to contact customer support for questions or help, you can reach a representative through phone, email or live chat.

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Our editorial staff evaluates products and services independently, but Best Review Guide may earn money when you click on links. Read our advertising disclosure.

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