Ally Invest Review
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- The Good
- Low management fee
- Excellent customer support
- Helpful tools and resources
- The Bad
- Website can be difficult to navigate
Ally Invest offers traders of all skill levels a trader network that is low priced and backed by a well-known name. Traders have the option of interacting with other traders, as well as utilizing a wide variety of tools to analyze trends, monitor the markets and trade with ease.
- Annual Fee
- 0.30% of investment
Ally Invest offers a similar fee structure to popular robo advisors like Betterment and Wealthfront, with a flat percentage charged to your overall investment. There are no extra fees or charges for having an Ally Invest Managed Portfolio.
- Accounts
- Taxable accounts (individual and joint)
- Traditional, Roth and SEP IRAs
- Trusts
Ally’s Managed Portfolios offers IRAs, rollovers and other taxable accounts. It puts your money in both ETFs (exchange traded funds) and ETNs (exchange traded notes), which act a lot like mutual funds, but are cheaper and more tax effective. Ally Invest also offers the option of investing in Trusts.
- Investments
- ETFs
Unlike other robo advisors, Ally Invest only uses your money to invest in ETFs, which are a form of mutual fund. Ally uses an algorithm to search for ETF investments with low expenses and other favorable attributes and builds your portfolio based on this research.
- Features
- Interview-style questionnaire for risk assessment
- Mobile management
- Goal tools
Ally Invest offers a very streamlined form of robo advisor investing, making it a great choice for beginners. Since it is streamlined, it doesn’t offer many of the investment features that other robo advisor’s offer, but does have an easy to use website, along with tools which will help make sure you have set up a no-worries portfolio that best represents your investing goals.
- Minimum Deposit
- $2,500
The only robo advisor that doesn’t require some sort of minimum deposit is Betterment, so Ally Invest’s minimum deposit requirement of $2,500 isn’t unusual, and most other robo advisors require larger deposits, except for Wealthfront. Still, to open up a managed portfolio, $2,500 is not that much of a commitment compared to Personal Capital’s $100,000.
Ally Invest: User Reviews
Ally Invest: Comments
Ally Invest offers its customers high-quality managed portfolios along with reasonable management fees. Considering this product is a reincarnation of Tradeking’s Advisor product, it is no surprise that Ally Invest is becoming one of the more popular robo advisor products out there.
The user interface at Ally Invest is competitive with the more well-known brokerage websites, and it posts consistent top marks in customer satisfaction rankings. But although high rankings are certainly important, the best feature offered by Ally Invest is its pricing: Ally Invest’s fees are the among the lowest.
If you’re seeking an investment platform that is simple to use and allows you to execute your own straightforward investment strategies, it will be well worth your time to explore Ally Invest.
If you are a first-time or relatively new investor and could benefit from a bit more guidance from professionals, you may not be as pleased with Ally Invest as with a firm that offers more management services.
How Does Ally Invest Work?
Opening an account with Ally Invest is simple and takes only about 10 minutes. You must have a U.S. address to sign up. You can fund your account in different ways, including wire transfers, electronic transfers direct from your bank or even old-fashioned checks. Once your funds have cleared, you can begin using the service right away.
Ally Invest is a free platform available to anyone who opens an account. Users gain access to such features as real-time streaming and quotes and fully customizable dashboards.
Ally Invest may not include a lot of the bells and whistles that other sites offer, but it does give you the ability to begin trading straight out of the gate. If you’re a beginner, you can utilize managed options or dive in to learn the trading game using the tools and resources offered. There’s also a forum where you can interact with other traders.
What Makes Ally Invest Stand Out?
Ally Invest stands out because it is relatively new to the robo advisor field, although it is basically a reincarnation of the Tradeking platform, so it does have some history behind its offerings. Ally Invest also offers a relatively low annual management fee on managed portfolios, which is especially good for those with high investment amounts in their managed portfolios.
Ally Invest also offers a robust trading community that can be a tremendous source of information and support for a neophyte investor. Ally Invest offers not only the standard research tools, but also a large FAQ section and pages of “beginner guides” to help new investors become familiar with the ins and outs of investing in different venues.
Common Reviews of Ally Invest
Most reviews of Ally Invest tend toward the positive. One of the most commonly mentioned positive aspects of Ally Invest is its customer service, which is available by phone 24/7. The company’s online chat feature is also popular with its users. If you’re a client traveling outside the U.S., there is even an international number available. There are no brick-and-mortar locations for Ally Invest, however.
Ally Invest does provide quite an extensive list of additional “service fees” on its website, including IRA Closure fees and IRA transfer fees. These are available for customers to review but may not always be clear on the front end of a transaction. It pays to read the fine print on the website before committing to any transactions.
Some reviews criticize the website for not being “flashy” or colorful, and the research database for not being searchable, but these are minor annoyances in the grand scheme of things, particularly in light of the low fees. The bottom line is that Ally Invest can hold its own when compared to its competitors, and it will be well worth your time to investigate the company when considering an online brokerage.
Can I Get Deals on the Ally Invest Site?
Ally Invest is offering a promotional bargain for those who switch from another company. You can get up to $150 in transfer fees reimbursed when you open an Ally Invest account and transfer your trading business.
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