Best online investment sites for beginners

We recognize that we all are living through a particularly volatile time as we deal with this global crisis, and financial markets have also seen unprecedented change, impacting all investors. Our mission has always been to help people make the most informed decisions about how, when and where to invest. Given recent market volatility, and the changes in the online brokerage industry, we are more committed than ever to providing our readers with unbiased and expert reviews of the top investing platforms for beginning investor. In our list of the best brokers for beginners, we focused on the features that help new investors learn as they are starting their investing journey. Brokers were selected based on top-notch educational resources, easy navigation, clear commission and pricing structures, portfolio construction tools, and a high level of customer service.

Best Online Stock Brokers for Beginners

I started managing my own money in a brokerage account almost 10 years ago. I closely analyzed almost a dozen of the most popular brokerage platforms available with an eye towards ease of use, educational tools, and low costs. Some platforms were too sophisticated for newbies and others were just too inaccessible.

But three are going to be great starting points for any beginner. If you are native to mobile and are happy to get educational materials elsewhere, there really is no better platform than Robinhood. But if you want a little more hand-holding and hope to grow into more sophisticated strategies like options, either Fidelity with its best-in-class tools, or TD Ameritrade with its personal-level of guidance, are also going to be great choices for any beginner trader.

The first thing to know about online brokers: They let you put money in and take it right back out as you need it, unlike tax-deferred retirement accounts that have steep penalties if you cash out early. Another important thing to know is that online brokers provide a huge universe of investments, unlike a k , which may only provide a total of 10 investment options. Not only do these charges add up, but they may ultimately lead you to make the wrong investments — doing lasting harm to your bank account as a result.

And your goal as a beginner is to take advantage of the investments not available to you elsewhere without racking up fees or making complex trades that erase your hard-earned savings. Admittedly, even with a great online broker it can be intimidating or challenging to invest at times.

But unless you have a million dollar trust fund waiting, you have to figure this out. The risks are real, yes, but so are the rewards. A good online broker like the three listed below can teach you some of the lessons I learned the hard way, and can help keep you from making some of the same mistakes. TD Ameritrade is an online broker that caters to investors of all types. No matter what your strategy, TD Ameritrade and its staff will help you live up to your full potential. For a beginner investor, there is no substitute for sitting down with someone when you need help.

That includes 1, investment consultants at roughly branches nationwide, and periodic seminars and conferences to help beginner investors. One thing I have learned since I started investing is that as my needs change. I often outgrow my old trading platform.

The good news for beginners starting out with TD Ameritrade is that the platform offers a complete line of trading and investing services, including retirement accounts like IRAs, as well as the ability to aggressively day-trade stocks and options, if you choose. But the costs are worth noting, and can be viewed in detail here. Cost Structure. Robinhood is truly an online broker for the 21st century.

Or, more precisely, the lack of trading fees altogether. There are none. As I said earlier, no broker is a charity. Robinhood indeed makes money off its users. But the way it makes money is precisely what makes it perfect for beginning investors. Margin accounts — that is, investing with borrowed money — can be a risky scenario and is not for beginners. Robinhood has upended the traditional broker experience by doing away with complex trading software and tools that most competitors offer.

You can sign up in just a few minutes on your smartphone, and make trades in seconds with just a few taps. For the new generation of investors who are native to mobile interfaces, it is refreshing to see a broker that offers this.

And the easy-to-use app takes a lot of stress out of the equation for beginners, particularly those who prefer a mobile platform. The downside of the mobile experience on Robinhood is, of course, an inability to provide as deep an experience as you get on larger computer screens, or in traditional browsers. And to be honest, as you learn the ropes as an investor, you will eventually grow beyond native tools provided by your broker and find other apps, websites, and research that fits with your own trading style.

And, honestly, part of the reason I have learned so much about markets and trading is because of the customizable research tools and screening software Fidelity offers its account holders. You can learn a ton without even trading, simply by getting your hands dirty with the research tools and learning about all the different parts of the market, and how they fit together.

You can sort ETFs by the sectors they focus on, their expenses, and even whether Fidelity offers a commission-free version to save you money on transactions. Wall Street can be a confusing place when you first jump in.

Want to explore the idea of backtesting, but need a little help? This is a powerful way to learn real-world investing techniques and put them into practice, instead of just reading about the topic elsewhere, then scratching your head when it comes time to actually do the work in your own brokerage account.

Want to know more about ETFs and how the costs are structured? As I said earlier, I was a customer of Fidelity for a long time, and I loved the platform. But I geek out on this stuff and love to test and research ideas for hours before making an actual trade, so those of you with a short attention span may simply be frustrated by all of the tools and information.

But if you really want to put in the work yourself to move beyond the kiddie pool and swim with the big fish on Wall Street, Fidelity is the platform for you.

All these brokerage platforms are serious about making investing accessible for beginners through their interfaces and low cost structures. If you want personal guidance from professionals and an easy-to-use trading platform, go with TD Ameritrade. Banking Financial Independence Financial Markets. Advertiser Disclosure. Meet the Author.

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I started managing my own money in a brokerage account almost 10 years ago. I closely analyzed almost a dozen of the most popular brokerage platforms available with an eye towards ease of use, educational tools, and low costs. Some platforms were too sophisticated for newbies and others were just too inaccessible.

The best online brokerage accounts offer plenty of benefits that make investing easy, including investing resources and reasonable minimum account requirements. While some brokerage accounts geared to beginners offer more hand-holding and automation, brokerage accounts for more seasoned investors tend to offer perks like free trades and access to superior trading tools.

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Best Online Brokers For Stocks in 2020

These days there are more ways than ever before to invest. This is thanks mostly to technology. Then again, these are also some of the most relevant factors to keep in mind when we decide between different investment platforms. There are so many options nowadays that even small differences in reputations for security, efficiency, safety, and customer service can make a huge difference. Ultimately, what matters most is where you feel most comfortable investing your money, and where you feel you can get the best possible return. This section concerns established online investment platforms.

Best Online Brokers for Beginners

In the competition for customers, investment brokers are competing with one another fiercely. Choosing the best online broker for stock trading will really depend on what type of trading you plan to do. Some firms are more general in their investment approach. Others are niche-oriented, focused on options trading or more advanced investing. You can choose the broker that best matches your investment style. How about a tie between Charles Schwab and Fidelity? Though you will certainly need to have funds in your account to begin investing, you can open your account with no money at all, then make periodic additions until you have enough funds to begin investing. Since beginning investors will likely start out with small portfolios — maybe just a few hundred dollars — the last thing they need are trading fees eating into their accounts and their profits. But equally important, both platforms provide round-the-clock customer service.

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The Best Online Brokerage Accounts For Beginners To Experienced Investors

Many of the offers appearing on this site are from advertisers from which this website receives compensation for being listed here. This compensation may impact how and where products appear on this site including, for example, the order in which they appear. These offers do not represent all deposit accounts available. After reviewing more than 2, data points, we bring you our second annual Best Brokers ranking. Providing a wide variety of account options, helpful investing tools and access to financial advisors, this investment broker is great for new and experienced investors. Rookie investors who have a lot to learn but not much to spend should consider Merrill Edge, the Best Online Stock Broker for Beginners. The company boasts no opening balance minimums and offers educational videos and courses to help you get started. Would you rather have the pros monitor your investments? As the Best Robo-Advisor, Merrill Guided Investing makes investing easy by offering professionally managed portfolios and investment strategies that can help you reach your goals. To learn more about investing with Interactive Brokers, click here. Plus, you can get access to financial advisors, promotional offers and more.

10 Best Online Investment Platforms of 2020

Disclosure: We are committed to recommending the best products for our readers. We may receive compensation when you click on links to products, but this never affects our reviews or recommendations. Investment apps allow both new and experienced investors to manage their investments in the stock market and other financial markets. While you used to have to pick up a phone and call a stockbroker to make a trade and then pay a steep commission , you can now pick up your smartphone, tap your screen a few times, and trade almost instantly—often for free or at a relatively low cost. After reviewing several apps for cost, ease of use, investment options, and other key factors, we rounded up the best investment apps available today. TD Ameritrade is a large and well-known brokerage firm in the United States. Its app gets our award for the best overall, thanks to its range of options that work well for both beginners and experts. Beginner to intermediate investors may prefer the default TD Ameritrade Mobile app. Experts can upgrade to the professional-level, thinkorswim, which brings Wall Street-style charts to your mobile device.