The Young Money Club

Robinhood

Robinhood is an app that allows you to buy and sell stocks for free. Users can buy or sell stocks, make limit and stop loss orders, and even trade options. It has a super simple design that makes it very accessible for beginners.

The only real downside to Robinhood is the lack of good graphs and analytical tools. So if you’re more experienced or would like to do more analysis, you’re better off researching elsewhere and just placing your trades on Robinhood.

Another cool feature of Robinhood is the bonus you get for signing up. If you use this link you can get a free stock just for making an account.

Acorns

I’ve mentioned Acorns before because its worry free savings system. It allows you to automatically save by “rounding up” your purchases to the nearest dollar. So that coffee you buy every morning for $3.50 will now be $4.00 with the extra 50 cents going into your Acorns account.

Acorns allows you to invest your savings in a number of professionally managed portfolios. If you have under $5,000 you just have to pay $1 per month. Accounts with a balance over $5,000 pay an annual fee of 0.25%. For college students with a .edu email, you can use Acorns absolutely free for up to four years from the day you register.

If you’re interested in Acorns you can sign up here.

Stash

Similar to Acorns, Stash is another great option for beginners. Stash stands out because of its account options: For $3/month, users get brokerage, bank, and retirement accounts. For $9/month, you can also get two custodial accounts, investment research every month, more rewards, and an upgraded debit card.

Stash only requires $5 to open an account. Users can use their funds to purchase fractional shares in stocks and ETFs. The only major downside to Stash is that they only offers about 150 stocks and 60 ETF options. To make their portfolios easier to navigate for beginners, Stash renames their ETFs with names like “Clean & Green” for the iShares Global Clean Energy ETF.

You can sign up for Stash here.

Fidelity

Fidelity is very well respected brokerage and what I personally use. Their app and website are simple enough for most people and they now offer $0 commission stock, option, and ETF trades!

They also offer fractional share investing, meaning you can invest with whatever amount of money you have rather than being restricted to entire shares. This is a big plus for people starting with low dollar amounts.

Furthermore, Fidelity offers two 0.00% expense ratio funds. So, not only can you invest commission free, but these funds don’t even charge any management fees.

If you want to sign up or learn more you can check Fidelity out here.

Invstr

Invstr is an app that combines a fantasy stock game, where you can assist in managing a $200 billion virtual portfolio, with access to investors’ thoughts on stocks and other investments.

The fantasy game gives you $1 million in virtual money, and you can use the app’s social network and news feed to learn and get new ideas. The month’s top performers win real cash, too. And if you want to turn some of those fantasy picks into real-life stakes, you can buy fractional shares from $0.99 per trade and whole shares from $2.99 per trade in the app.

Overall it’s a great way to practice investing before jumping in with your own money.

Conclusion

There are a ton of great options for you to begin your investing journey. These are a few of my favorites but make sure to do your own research and choose the app/brokerage that’s right for you.

If you have a preference other than the one I listed feel free to mention it in the comments!

If you would like to learn more about investing for beginners you can check out How to Invest Your First $1000.