Investment Apps For Your Portfolio

Businessman checks the financial analysis on smartphone

In today’s world, keeping track of our investment portfolios is easier than ever. It is no longer a novel concept. All it takes is one internet search to find myriad choices for investment apps that help manage your portfolio. People who pay attention to the finance scene can stay abreast of the ups and downs of the markets and make their investment decisions on the fly.

Some investment apps can help us achieve many, if not all, of our financial goals in one place. People that want to diversify their portfolio even further are probably better off downloading several different apps.

Robin Hood

At this point, everyone who follows the markets has heard of Robin Hood. Its claim to fame is its zero commission policy for stocks, options, and exchange-traded funds (ETFs). Those of us who invested before the Robin Hood era know what it’s like to pay a commission on every trade. It used to be the standard, so most of us didn’t complain. Suddenly, there’s a new trading platform that offers commission-free trades. Now everyone is witnessing a paradigm shift in the way that we invest.

It hasn’t all been sunshine and clear skies. There was the GameStop saga from earlier this year. Reportedly, a coalition of amateur traders teamed up to raise the stock price for GameStop to over $400. Those of us who incidentally had GameStop in our portfolios years ago sold as soon as possible. However, some short-sellers got burned pretty badly when regulators put the squeeze on Robin Hood.

Robin Hood eventually had to restrict trading because regulatory authorities knew that the stock price gain wasn’t because of fundamentals. That is to say that an army of amateur investors tried their hand at market manipulation, and it worked. Long-term traders won out because the stock had been all but worthless for years and suddenly looked like gold for a few minutes.

New investors that were not part of the Reddit crowd took a hit because people weren’t allowed to buy more GameStop shares. Consequently, the stock price fell off a cliff. That means that everyone who jumped in at the higher end of the feeding frenzy ended up with a stock that was worth less than half of what they paid for it.

We can even trade cryptocurrencies and ETFs on their platform and still enjoy a zero-commission experience. However, people looking for advanced trading tools should probably download another app. It’s a good starting point for investors who are looking for investment apps for stocks, ETFs and crypto all in one place. Overall, Robin Hood is the app for people who want simplicity from their user experience.

It is not an entirely free experience. There are fees for other kinds of transactions, and the company even offers a $5 a month premium membership that gives traders access to its market reports and other benefits. Other top trading platforms have since followed suit and now offer commission-free trading as well. However, most of them still have a small per-contract fee that Robin Hood does not.

Investors can even trade fractional shares. On other platforms such as Etrade, you can only buy fractional shares with whole shares under specific circumstances and then sell them later. Robin Hood allows traders to purchase fractional shares starting at $1. That is a way to diversify for people who don’t have a lot of capital to invest.

SoFi

SoFi is another brokerage that puts stocks, ETFs, and crypto in one convenient app. It has jumped on the commission-free trade bandwagon. SoFi offers a great mobile app experience that is good for any of us who are new to investing. There is a $1 account minimum. It also has crypto trading worked into its apparatus.

Crypto trading on this platform is limited to Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, Etherium, Ethereum Classic, and Litecoin. At some point, it intends to add up to 40 cryptocurrencies to suit all of our arbitrage needs. The user-friendly app experience makes this an ideal platform for those of us who like to make our crypto market moves on the go.

Much like Robin Hood, Sofi does not offer mutual funds trading. That’s a deal-breaker for those of us who like to invest funds leftover from our other trades into mutual funds. Some people won’t care. Others would like to put every last dollar in their brokerage accounts to work. Unlike Robin Hood, SoFi does have individual retirement account (IRA) management functionality on its platform.

It offers active and automated IRA choices. Automated account management is not a novel concept these days and is worth trying for people who want to put their portfolio on cruise control. It also differs from Robin Hood because it doesn’t let people trade options. Another difference between the two is that Sofi doesn’t offer margin accounts.

Margin trading is for people who do not mind borrowing against the principle that they invest. Some people like it, but it’s not for everyone. People that want advanced charting tools will have to search for another app to download.

In Conclusion

We’ve discussed the best ways to keep track of your stocks, ETFs, and Cryptocurrencies on Mobile.

Several brokerages offer a one-stop-shop for all of our stocks, ETFs, and crypto needs. Some people will want to have everything in one place. Others will want to download several apps that specialize in each. Our takeaway from this experience is that making informed decisions is the only way forward for anyone who wants to put their money to work in the most intelligent way possible.

Both of the apps in this article handle stocks, ETFs, and crypto well. They are by no means perfect, but they are a great place to start. Advanced traders will want to look for apps that have the tools that professional traders use. Overall, we think that the investment apps we discussed will generally have our bases covered in the numbers game that many of us know and love.