Ally Invest Review 2020

Ally Invest serves the needs of their customers in many different ways. They offer everything from banking to home loans, auto finance, corporate finance and of course investing.

They have more than 250,000 active customer accounts, as well as over $4.7 billion worth of assets. They were formerly known as TradeKing, which was an independent broker online for more than a decade. In April 2016, Ally Financial purchased TradeKing for $275 million.

All Ally customers have the same log in, no matter what department they are looking to use. This makes it very easier for customers of Ally Bank to manage their investments. The Ally Invest trading performance is very similar to what TradeKing users experienced. There is a combination of competitive pricing and handy tools for different skill levels.

Combining their range of products and competitive pricing with great customer support, it is easy to see why All Invest is one of the industry leaders.

All Invest generally has competitive commission and fees. Normal stock trades will cost $4.95, with this $4.95 having an additional charge of $0.65 per options contract. There are rewards for high volume traders.

If you make at least 30 trades in the same quarter or you have a balance maintained of $100,000, the rate will fall to $3.95 for trading sticks and $3.95 plus $0.50 for each options contract.

Their competitors are catching up in terms of competitive pricing. This was started when Charles Schwab began cutting their fees and commission levels. This led to the four largest brokers engaging in a price war with one another. These brokers were Charles Schwab, E-Trade, TD Ameritrade and Fidelity.

Now they match the low costs of Ally Invest. However, Ally Invest still has a much lower cost of trading mutual funds, with their fee being $9.95 per trade in comparison to $49.95 with Charles Schwab and Fidelity.

There are two main trading platforms on offer with Ally Invest. Most of their customers utilise the Classic platform. This has basic analysis and charting tools for you to use. However, there is no way to customize the platform to tailor the variables to your own preferences.

You can also use the live platform. This is a lot more flexible than the classic version. You can customize it as much as you want and it as more indicators and tools than are seen with the classic option. There is a variety of third party stock screening platforms available through this platform. This will help you to conduct further analysis on your portfolio and see what the current indicators are suggesting.

The Ally Mobile also allows you to carry out your banking and brokerage needs from your phone. The experience of trading through the mobile app is seamless. You have all of the tools needed in order to manage your portfolio.

You can get updates on your current positions, look at your watch list, check quotes and analyse charts. There are 17 different indicators available as part of the mobile app. You will have quote data live streamed to your device and you can easily place traded as needed.

The app has a very clean interface and is not clunky to use like a lot of their competitors, mobile offerings. Some of the areas in which this app lacks are the lack of alerts and making transfers to your account.

You have two main account options with Ally Invest. You can start with a self trading account if you are happy to trade on your own behalf. You do not have to deal with an account minimum and there are no fees for inactivity or maintenance.

For margin accounts, you will need to always have a balance of at least $2,000 as per federal regulation. If you prefer to take a more passive approach to your investing, then the managed account will be for you.

This is an automated account which is looked after by a robo-advisor. Your investments will be automatically picked for depending on your stated goals. There is a minimum investment of $2,500 for this account. There is also an annual fee worth 0.30% of the account balance.

If you want to trade forex or futures, there is a separate account you will need to use.

For making deposits, there is an annual fee in place of $35 if you are paying through a debit card. If you want to deposit via cheque, you will need to keep an account balance of $10,000. There is a $20 fee annual fee in place to avail of this service. You can make electronic transfers from your bank account for free if it is linked to your Ally Invest account.

There are a number of options for withdrawing funds from Ally Invest. For a $5 fee, you can request to receive a payment by cheque. This can be overnighted to you if you ring them and pay a charge of $55. If you have a bank account linked to your Ally Invest account which has been set up for electronic transfers, you will not have to pay a withdrawal fee. A wire transfer to a bank account will cost you a fee of $0.

Ally Invest is committed to providing their customers with the best experience as possible. This is why they offer 24/7 customer support. They support communication through live online chat, telephone and email services. There are no physical branches, so you cannot pay them a visit in-person.

Ally Invest has an upstanding track record when it comes to treating their customers properly. They always act with fairness and will have any issues resolved as soon as possible.

As they are a part of the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) investors are kept protected. FINRA is a non-profit that is not affiliated with the government. Their main role is to ensure that the broker-dealer sector is operated in a manner that is honest and fair.

As Ally Invest is part of the Securities Investor Protection Corporation (SIPC), their customers account are covered up to claims worth $500,000 and there is a max cash claim in place worth $500,000.

This means that if Ally Invest fails, your funds will be protected. Of course, your losses from participating in the market will not be protected. There is additional coverage in place at Ally Invest worth $37.5 million, including a cash amount of $900,000. The protection is not able to cover futures and forex trading.