What Stock trading app would you recommend, and why?

Trying to get into this - albeit I'm late to the party, but as they say, better late than never, right?

You’re actually popping in at a great time imo if you’re interested in buying tech/ev/growth stuff. They have been getting their butt kicked for a while now.

Most people will prob recommend robinhood but I’m not a fan. I’d go with etrade or tda, simple to use and reliable. On big volatility days robinhood is known to have technical issues. I have not experienced much issues with etrade or tda. I think the original draw to robinhood was free commissions but now every main broker is free commissions.

This is going to be a take you wont like because its not what you asked but just dont use an app. Sit on your computer log in to whatever platform you use. Sit down with a coffee or something and think about what you're about to do and why youre doing it.

I have invested now for 6 years and I say generally my impulse buys have treated me worse. Totally anecdotal but I think you can see the logic behind having a small barrier that slows down what you're doing to reduce impulsive actions.

You don't want to be on the toilet or worse in a bar with your pals and a great idea comes up when you're half in the bag.

Actually to the contrary, I really appreciate your insight. This is something new to me, and I'm not a impulse person, so I'm not really worried about impulse buys. I do work from a computer, and actually I am writing you from work now, so this is a viable option as well. May I ask what websites you use? I only plan to dabble at first to try and gain a feel for this. If I spend a few hundred and do good then I can plan more. If I spend a few hundred and tank, then I've only lost a few hundred.

Thanks for the tips and literally any information that is gifted upon me will be used fully, so please don't be afraid to give a unpopular opinion!



Thank you for your opinion! All three of the stated apps were on my shopping list, and I'm hoping to get honest opinions like yours!

I'm not much of a day trader, but I've been using ETrade for 13 or so years with no real complaints. I've actually begun using them for my Savings/Checking accounts as well as my investing accounts to just keep it simpler.

Fidelety and Vanguard are probably the two most popular for long term index investors, but I've heard a lot of complaints about their level of customer service recently.

Robinhood is probably the most common among the younger generation for the reasons RatM listed as well as there app UI being a bit more intuitive and I believe people can be approved for Options/Margin trading a bit easier....Although to be honest I've never really had any trouble with the Power ETrade app.

I am Canadian so I have less options than Americans and my investment style is primarily buy and hold with few trades monthly other than dumping in my bi-weekly pay and as a result i just use RBC Direct Investing. I am investing significant amounts at once so its transaction fees are ultimately trivial. In your case I would look for a cheaper platform since Americans have many options that give free trades or trades that cost very little. For in depth data on a platform you typically have to purchase subscriptions for things like level 2 data and if you're only investing smaller amounts the subscription is going eclipse the amount you're actually investing.

I still just use Excel. Here is an old sample but i still look as of March 2021 at the list and filter it using various parameters on a monthly basis. https://www.dividendgrowthinvestingandretirement.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/Canadian-Dividend-All-Star-List-March-31-2018.xls

I am on a few email lists like that where I get data from but again all Canadian so not so applicable to you.

You don't need anything fancy to make long term money.Just indexing 10,000 against the S&P in 2001 and letting it sit until today it would be worth over 46K now. Its not sexy but its a CAGR of 7.89%. Thats pretty good!

This post was edited by SBD on May 5 2021 03:28pm

So it kinda depends on how much you have.

If you're less than 10k, just use Robinhood. It's the simplest to use and will let you learn the ropes.

Then graduate up to WeBull or something, with a bit more in-depth.

Once you're rolling with 25k+ upgrade to a real broker like Fidelity, IBKR, etc.

I wouldn't recommend Fidelity, the share trading fees are a lot higher than the apps. I use Trading212 and it's pretty good

for phone apps i recommend webull. robinhood sucks. just skip over that and go straight to webull. I don't even trade on webull, but i like the app so much that i use it as another source of info as i trade on my desktop with TD.

if you can trade on a desktop that would be even better. Then use TD, and get their TOS platform downloaded on your desktop.

Any app recommendations for peeps starting with less than 5k?