26 KIPLINGER’S PERSONAL FINANCE^ 10/2019INVESTING
ating its mobile trade ticket was a
breeze, but it was nearly impossible
to find serious research on the mobile
app. Ally’s and WellsTrade’s platforms
were mostly a miss: clunky, sparse and
difficult to navigate.
Though Interactive Brokers and
TradeStation both offer platforms
and tools that are cutting-edge for
advanced, active traders, neither site
proved terribly intuitive to the every-
day investors among us. ■teract with their brokerage through
Facebook Messenger, Apple Chat,
Twitter direct messages or by talking
to their Amazon Alexa device, can,
since July, access brokerage informa-
tion in their car through Apple Car-
Play, Android Auto and Echo Auto.
Other brokerages were hit-and-miss.
Our writers loved Fidelity’s robust
ETF quote page, for instance, but then
wondered why similar pages for mu-
tual funds were practically devoid of
information. Firstrade’s website was
the speediest of the bunch, and oper-marks among our testers for the intu-
itiveness of its platform and the ease
with which users could find invest-
ment research. Stock-quote pages are
full of useful research on the web and
mobile platforms, and investors look-
ing for investment ideas can start with
the firm’s thematic investing page,
which recommends ETFs that play
on themes such as cybersecurity,
self-driving cars and millennials.
Schwab and TD Ameritrade post
good scores in this category as well.
TD customers, who could already in- CONTACT THE AUTHOR AT [email protected].Personalize ItFIND THE RIGHT BROKER FOR YOU
Investors of all stripes can find standout brokers that offer the
services they value most.Best for exchange-traded fund investors: FIRSTRADE. Its
industry-leading roster of more than 2,200 commission-free ETFs
beats most brokers by a mile. (Vanguard, which declined to par-
ticipate in our survey, offers some 1,800 such funds.) Investors
shopping among Firstrade’s free funds will find every member
of the Kiplinger ETF 20 (our favorite ETFs) and thousands more.Best for mutual fund investors: CHARLES SCHWAB, E*TRADE,
FIDELITY, INTERACTIVE BROKERS and TD AMERITRADE. Each offers
more than 3,900 mutual funds that you can buy with no sales fee
or fee to trade. Interactive Brokers,
Schwab and TD Ameritrade win for
breadth: Each list cracks 4,000
funds. E*Trade boasts the highest
percentage of no-transaction-fee
funds with three-star ratings or
better from Morningstar. Fidelity
offers four funds with 0% expense
ratios and 27 funds (including
those four) that have no invest-
ment minimum.Best for active traders:
FIRSTRADE, MERRILL EDGE, INTER-
ACTIVE BROKERS and TRADESTA-
TION. You’ll pay no commission to
trade stocks at Firstrade, and Pre-
ferred Rewards customers with
a combined $100,000 balance atBank of America earn 100 free trades per month at Merrill Edge.
Wheeler-dealers can pay fractions of a cent per share at Interac-
tive Brokers and TradeStation, and both offer tons of tools geared
toward active traders.Best for margin traders: INTERACTIVE BROKERS. Investors with
$100,000 in an account looking to trade with borrowed money
will pay 3.89% on margin loans. The nine other firms in our survey
levy between 7.7% and 9.5%.Best for investors who hold cash: FIDELITY. Fido offers the
highest interest rates among brokers in our survey on “sweep”
accounts (the accounts that hold clients’ uninvested cash). The
default account, Fidelity Govern-
ment Money Market (symbol
SPAXX), yields 1.82%. Investors
can also use Fidelity Treasury
Money Market (FZFXX), yielding
1.81%, as their sweep account or a
cash account called FCASH, which
pays 1.07% in interest.Best for beginners: MERRILL EDGE.
The “story” features on this easy-
to-use platform walk investors
through investment analysis and
decision-making. The “Stock Story”
mode leads the investor to ques-
tions, for instance, about a com-
pany or its shares. The answers
are full of digestible analysis and
actionable advice.