How to choose an app for investing

Speaker 1: Investing has never been easier. You don't need thousands of dollars anymore and you can do it all from your phone or your computer. But choosing an app can be overwhelming. This is how to choose the right investing app for you. Let me start by saying, this is not financial advice. I am Sally Neman and I am not a financial advisor, but I've done all the research. So you don't have to, to choose the app. That's right for you. There are a few things to consider. Number [00:00:30] one, who do you trust to manage your money? Is it one of the established financial firms like Charles Schwab or fidelity, or is it one of the new players like Robin hood and one finance or we, then you need to decide if you're willing to spend money to earn money. In other words, are you okay with paying fees? Speaker 1: Some likens offer a monthly subscription. You can choose from three tiers starting at $1 a month to use the basic features. Going up to $5 a month [00:01:00] gives you access to retirement accounts, adding family members, financial advice, and automatic recurring investments. You also need to decide how much money you are willing to risk. It's not that common anymore, but some apps still require a minimum account balance. Most apps are affordable and accessible, and there is a long list that don't have any fees. If you're wondering how they make money. Well, some of them are selling your data money. Doesn't grow on trees. Right? [00:01:30] Next thing to think about how easy is it to understand and navigate. If you're a beginner and you want to trade stocks, consider roaming hood. The app is built almost like a video game with just a few swipes. You are able to buy stocks and build your portfolio almost too easy, which means it's easy to make mistakes. Speaker 1: If you want to be more of a passive investor, you may want to consider acorns or M one finance. These apps have built in portfolios where [00:02:00] you only have to choose the level of risk. Etra also gets a lot of love for its easy to understand platform, as well as Charles STR with its bubbly graphics and already set index funds to choose from. Look at the end of the day, learning how to use a platform is something you can always do. It may just take some time and effort. There are apps to suit investors of full levels. Let's look at some specific features. Most apps will let you trade stocks, [00:02:30] NFTs, and even cryptocurrency, but only a few will give you IPO access. Some have day trading, which lets you buy and sell stocks on the same day. Others like TDM Marade and Vanguard. Like you invest in their index and mutual funds as well as individual stocks. Speaker 1: Then there's this thing called fractional shares. For example, if you want to buy Tesla, but you don't have $700 in hand, you can choose to buy a slice or a fraction [00:03:00] with what you can afford to invest some offer dividend reinvestment, where you can automatically reinvest what you earned from your stocks. Others have access to retirement accounts, check in accounts and credit cards. You can also invest while shopping. That's a feature called stock back. You can find that on stash, the Roundup multiplier is an acorn feature and that lets you invest your spare change. And finally never underestimate the power [00:03:30] of human advice. Some of these apps just give you access to a robot or financial articles, but I am a fan of talking to a real person. You know, I am not a financial advisor, but I happen to have a colleague who is here's Farra from the podcast. So many and seen it's editor large with her expertise. Speaker 2: Apps can be really great in helping to facilitate your investment strategy, but really important to look and make sure that this app is particular investing app offers a broad depth, [00:04:00] a broad range of investments, and doesn't just limit you to stocks and crypto. But if you're interested in opening up that retirement account, let's say, and have a diversified portfolio that you can do this with an array of options with, uh, a low fee and also ideally a human being behind the technology. If you have questions, if you're in a rut, if you wanna learn how to combine portfolios or open up a new account and the technology's just not speaking to you, that you [00:04:30] can actually talk to an experienced licensed human being to walk you through the mechanics, be aware of any investment apps that turn investing into a game. Investing is not a game, right? That's trading. Uh, trading is storming darts on a board. It's literally gambling. Some apps thrive on that. Some apps encourage us to make knee jerk reactions to our investment plan. And that can be a slippery slope. Really important that you work with an app that understands what your investment goals [00:05:00] are. If the app is gamifying investing, I will be very careful Speaker 1: To wrap this up. Here is the summary of all those features from a bunch of investing apps, feel free to post this video and take a screenshot for later. I hope this helps you pick the right investing app for you. Thank you for watching. Let me know which app are you going to try? And if you have any more questions about how this works also, if you like how to videos, subscribe to the channel, you won't [00:05:30] regret it till next time.