Ally Invest Review 2023

Ally Invest is in line with much of the industry in offering $0 trades for stocks, options, mutual funds, and ETFs. However, stocks priced less than $2 per share are charged a commission of as much as $4.95 plus $0.01 per share. Though Ally’s automated portfolios don’t offer one-on-one advisor guidance, you can still work with a financial advisor, thanks to its Wealth Management account. However, you’ll need a $100,000 minimum, and you’ll pay up to 0.85% in advisory fees. When it comes to bond investments, you’ll need a minimum of $10, and you’ll pay $1 per bond.

However, each options contract you buy comes with a $0.50 fee. Bonds always cost $1 per bond, and no-load mutual funds will run you $9.95 per trade. Ally offers a wide variety of investments to make your portfolio diverse and secure.

Expense ratios are expressed as a percentage of your investment and indicate the portion of your investment that goes to the manager of that particular fund. For the ally invest review more hands-off approach, Ally Invest Robo Portfolios’ robo-advisor makes investing simple. With just $100, you can start investing in one of Ally’s robo portfolios.

• After making your initial investment, Ally will create recommendations based on the goals you wish to achieve.
• But only a few account types are offered and you won’t find the level of research that is available through other brokers.
• This community page can be customized by the user under each of these content areas.
• The cash-enhanced portfolio does not charge any advisory fees.

Investors can select from Core, Income, Socially Responsible or Tax-Optimized portfolios. Ally Invest and Fidelity are two popular trading and investment platforms. While many of the core features are similar, important differences make each a better option for specific investors. Here’s how Ally Invest and Fidelity compare based on usability, trade experience, offerings and cost. Find out the similarities and differences between these two platforms here. If you prefer hands-on investing advice, a financial advisor could help you create a financial plan for your investments.

Tools and Calculators

Robo-portfolios with Ally Invest have a $100 minimum, but Fidelity’s robo-advisor (Fidelity Go) has no minimum investment. Fidelity also offers fractional shares, which Ally currently lacks. Fractional shares allow you to buy smaller denominations of stocks, which can be better for new investors. For those who want a savings account option, Ally Invest customers can instantly transfer money to Ally Bank and earn a 4.25% annual percentage yield with a deposit account.

There is also an extensive disclosures page that includes content from FINRA. There is a Strategy Builder under the tool menu’s technical analysis section, which is in addition to the options scanning feature already described. The Strategy Builder functions very similarly to a screener but also includes backtesting. There are nine expertly created and backtested strategies including growth at a reasonable price and quality stocks at a reasonable price. The strategies are screens, however, as it is still up to the account holder to choose from among the individual securities that meet the search criteria.

Trading costs at Ally Invest are competitive and include zero-commission trading for stocks and ETFs. Brokerage firms allow you to borrow against the value of your investments. Some people use margin loans to leverage their portfolio (invest with borrowed money), which can increase the profits if your investments rise in value at a rate higher than the cost of borrowing money. That said, using margin also adds more risk to your portfolio, as it multiplies losses if your investments fall in value. Ally Invest is in the middle of the pack for margin rates, offering rates lower than the larger players, but it charges more than one of the low-cost leaders, Interactive Brokers.

Investment options

That can be great for transfers between accounts, reducing delays on cash moves between a bank and broker, for example. It can be convenient to simply have your accounts in one place when tax time arrives. Often, Ally Invest ends up feeling like just another tab on the dashboard of the entire Ally website. Ally Invest’s browser-based platform offers quick trading capabilities, real-time streaming quotes and data, a customizable dashboard, and access to all of the broker’s tools.

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This influences which products we write about and where and how the product appears on a page. Personally, I’m not a fan of day trading nor do I talk about it much. If you want to know more about day trading on Ally, read their disclosure here.

We then developed a quantitative model that scored each company to rate its performance across nine major categories and 57 criteria to find the best robo-advisors. The score for each company’s overall star rating is a weighted average of the criteria. Ally Invest Robo Portfolios is headquartered in Charlotte, North Carolina, and was founded in 2005. Ally Invest Robo Portfolios is a wholly owned subsidiary of Ally Financial Inc and operates as a brokerage service for the company. “Because I was already an account holder, It was very straightforward just to link the accounts to select my risk tolerance level and an amount that I wanted to fund initially.”

Trade Experience

We’ve also reviewed the Ally Managed Portfolios robo-advisor service and will take a deeper look at Ally Invest to help you decide whether it is the right fit for your investing needs. Further, Ally Invest’s helpful tools for options analysis are unavailable at many brokers. Ally Invest will appeal to active traders looking for low costs and margins, new investors, and Ally Bank’s online banking customers.

Notably, Ally frames risk in terms of hypothetical gains and losses you might experience in a given risk level’s portfolio to really bring home the amount of volatility and risk you’re signing up for. This means you’ll gain access to its parent company’s many robust services, which may let you centralize your financial life under Ally’s roof. Whether you invest with Fidelity or Ally Invest, you’ll have extensive tools to trade as well as monitor and track your investments, both online and via mobile. Both offer online trading platforms with real-time quotes and data, quick trading ability, a watchlist and advanced charting capabilities.

We’ll take an extensive look at all that Ally Invest Robo Portfolios has to offer to help you decide if this investing platform is the right fit for your financial goals. Low margin rates, high interest rates on cash balances, and a leading number of no-transaction-fee mutual funds serve to make this broker a top pick. If you go the Self-Directed Trading route, you can buy and sell stocks, bonds, ETFs, futures, foreign exchange funds, options and mutual funds yourself. You’ll enjoy no or low commission fees, plus no minimum account size requirement. Plus, you have access to tools to stay on top of the market and best calculate your trading moves.

Below in this Ally Invest review, I’m going to cover more about the company, their Self-Directed Trading and their Managed Portfolios — either of which could be the right option for you. It can be a bit overwhelming for a newbie, but fortunately most of the investing platforms out there are quite good — like Ally Invest. Ally Invest Robo Portfolio doesn’t offer cryptocurrencies like bitcoin. After providing a portfolio recommendation, Ally gives you the option to open a new account or make changes to your preferences. Rashawn Mitchner is a MarketWatch Guides team editor with over 10 years of experience covering personal finance and insurance topics.