Is Ally Invest Scam Or Legit?
Ally Invest USA is not a scam. It’s a brokerage firm that has SIPC insurance. That means when you create an account with the firm, the SIPC will protect your account up to $500,000, with $250,000 being cash. In addition, Ally Invest is a legitimate firm that’s a member of SEC (with I.D. no. 8-66982) and FINRA (with I.D. no. 136131).
The registration has nothing to do with you being profitable in your trade. It only means that recognized regulatory authorities are responsible for any misconduct of Ally Invest and ensure that they operate ethically and legally.
Ally Invest USA has Apex Clearing Corp. as their clearing firm. They are also registered with SEC, FINRA, and a number of other exchanges such as the NYSE and CBOE. In addition, other brokers use Apex to clear their brokerages.
When we take a look at the financial capabilities of Ally Invest USA, a recent yearly report shows that their revenue is more than $1 billion from a booming auto insurance sector. Their client assets are more than $170 billion. $100 billion is from the banking sector. And the numbers keep growing, which means the Ally Invest broker firm is expanding.
Ally Invest Open Account Offers And Account Change
Most online brokerages provide lucrative offers when you sign up with them. The new customer offers or bonuses give you free money to trade with. An online broker usually offers it as a way to attract new traders with various incentives. However, there are various kinds of bonus offers, and each of them comes with terms and conditions before you can get the bonus money paid to your account. Unfortunately, Ally Invest did away with their cash bonus incentives. However, they believe that their competitive rates and features are good enough to draw you to their platform.
Changing Account With Ally Invest
There are times when you may want to switch online brokerages for various reasons: for example, you may want a new trading experience. Whatever your reason, you can change your account to Ally Invest with no issues.
Here’s how the process works:
- Create an Ally Invest open account and sign in
- Select ‘Transfers’
- Click on the ‘Investments’ tab
- And select ‘From Another Firm’ to input how much you wish to transfer.
Please remember that Ally Invest USA holds the sole right to terminate any offer within any period without prior notice or prolong the offer according to their discretion. For alternative providers, take a look at our AutoShares review and Betterment review.
From our Ally Invest USA review, the website is appropriately designed and easy to use. There is basic customization which you can use on your dashboard. It’s not possible to change the size of the tabs, but changing their positions is possible.
Ally Invest only offers a one-step sign-in authentication, even though a two-step is more secure. Before you sign in on a new device, there are security questions you need to answer, according to our Ally Invest USA review. When you are done with your account registration, you can sign in with your password and I.D.
The search functions are better and come with auto-suggestion, which can be useful. It also shows relevant results. From our Ally Invest review USA, the brokerage provides different types of orders: limit, stop limit, stop loss, market, trailing stop, and Market-On-Close (MOC).
There’s a nice feature that can display calls, and it’s easy to search for stocks when the ticker symbol is entered. When you click on the trade button, it shows a pop-up window in which you can submit an order. There is also a technical analysis that comes as a free tool from Recognia.
What we also found out from our Ally Invest review USA is that it comes with diverse investment calculators on the site. There’s an API you can use and also a watchlist. However, some links on the site are outdated, and the overall website looks underdeveloped.
For the occasional trader looking for alternative options, check out our Robinhood review, to see how Ally Invest compares.
Opening an account with Ally Invest USA is straightforward, simple to navigate, and entirely digital. You don’t need a minimum deposit to open an account. That is a plus, as it can allow you to trade with small amounts as you start out. However, from our Ally invest review, it will take you three business days to open the account due to verification processes. Compared to other online brokers, as discussed in our Charles Schwab review, Ellevest review, and Gain Capital review, you may feel that it is slow.
Also, the Ally Invest open account is only accessible to U.S. citizens, which means you can’t open an account if you’re outside the USA. Ally Invest has many types of accounts:
- Individual accounts
- Business accounts
- Joint accounts
- Retirement accounts
- Pension accounts
- Education savings account
- Custodial accounts
- Self-Directed Trading account
- Managed Robo Portfolios
The simplest way to deposit your account is through your debit card, because the funds will get to your account faster than through other means. For example, it takes two business days for the funds to arrive when you use wire transfers. You can use Yen, Francs, Pounds, U.S. Dollars, Canadian Dollars, Euros, and Australian Dollars to send the money to your account.
Other methods for funding are far slower. An ACH account takes up to five working days, and using a check can take up to ten business days. It is advisable to use a U.S. bank to draw the check.
With Ally Invest open account, you’ll have access to automated Robo portfolios. These portfolios are split into four categories, core, income, tax optimized and socially responsible. A Robo-advisor provides an integrated algorithm to help manage your investments. It’s similar to the Robo-advisors that Betterment or Wealthfront offers. You can check out the Betterment USA review to learn more about their Robo-advisors and many more.
To start using the Robo portfolio, customers will need to tell Ally Invest about their financial goals to help them discover which ETFs are best to invest in. You’ll only need to deposit $100 to open this account, and you’ll be given trading recommendations by the Robo-advisors to enhance your portfolio. These recommendations are monitored regularly, so you can check how your performance is doing 24/7 on the platform.
Cash-Enhanced Managed Portfolios don’t come with advisory fees, rebalancing fees, or annual costs and 30% of your portfolio is used as a buffer against the markets’ high volatility.
According to our Ally Invest Review, the trading platform is user-friendly and comes with a suitable search function. Ally Invest has three trading platforms and comes with different tradable products. The three trading platforms are the website, mobile app, and desktop.
The web platform provides fast trading capabilities, live streaming data and quotes, and a dashboard you can customize. You can also access all the brokerage’s tools. However, if you don’t enjoy using the website, you can try other avenues such as Quotestream.
Quotestream is an advanced desktop platform that offers level II quotes, security research, and superior charting. However, you’ll need 30 trades for each quarter to be able to access it. The second platform is the forex trading system.
The system can develop trading strategies automatically. It’s simple to use, and the dealing boxes make overseeing the currency rate simple. There are more than eighty technical studies which come with numerous drawing tools on the charting system on the platform.
The final platform is Ally Invest LIVE, which is a browser system from the site. There are no conditions for trading, unlike Quostream. It comes with the same order types from the website. The arrangement of the home screen is made through tiles, which may help you understand the different details of the market, such as indexes, quotes from stocks, and news articles.
Mobile App
Finally, we come to the mobile app. There’s only one platform on the mobile app, and it works on both Apple and Android tablets and phones. Ally Invest uses the same app for their daily activities. When you log into your account, any financial report will show. Clicking on the securities account will launch the apps brokerage.
The apps charts include a few indicators, comparisons, horizontal mode, and a timeframe that goes back as far as 30 years, minimum.
Ally Invest Payment And Trading Fees
Before we dive deeper into the trading fees and payment methods, you need to know the difference between trading charges and non-trading charges.
Trading charges are the costs incurred when you trade. It could be spreads, conversion fees, or one of many more possibilities. On the other hand, non-trading charges are the costs incurred that are not directly connected to your trading, for example inactivity fees and withdrawal fees.
From our Ally Invest review, all the trading charges of Ally Invest USA are low. We determined the fee level as low based on comparison with all reviewed brokers. The structure of the trading charge is simple to understand and transparent.
All ETF and stock with prices more than $2 come with no commission charge. If the ETF or stocks are below $2, there is a flat cost of $4.95 and $0.1 for each stock charge. Ally Invest also has low bond charges, particularly when you compare them with European stockbrokers where the cost for trading in bonds is $50 to $70 for each trade.
Non-Trading Fees
The non-trading fees for Ally Invest are low. There are no charges for inactivity and account fees. However, when you withdraw to other banks through wire transfer, you can incur a cost of $30.
When it comes to the payment method, you can use eCheck, wire transfer, check deposit, and debit card. You can also use Western Union and MoneyGram to make payments, but you can’t use PayPal. One great feature of Ally Invest is that, if you have an account with Ally Bank, all withdrawals come with no charge.
Ally Invest provides 24/7 customer support and offers relevant solutions to any issues related to Ally Invest. However, in terms of our Ally Invest opinions, the quick response from live chat and phone support was only average. You can get in touch with Ally Invest through email, live chat, and phone.
When we tested the phone support, they gave us helpful answers. The delivery speed is relatively average. Using the email, we got a reply back in a few days. However, at other times, we got the response within 24 hours when we sent a query. The live chat could be better, as although the response was average in terms of speed, the answers we got were mediocre.
Regulation And Deposit Insurance
When it comes to securing your funds, Ally Invest is under the SIPC. It means, when something happens to Ally Invest, your funds are saved with SIPC.
The SIPC can cover a total of $500,000 of clients’ claims, with a maximum of $250,000 cash. Ally Invest offers an additional cover of $37.5 million maximum, with $900,000 in cash and a cap of $150 million.
However, the SIPC can’t shield you from losing your investment from the trading market. Find out more if you want a further explanation from the SIPC. From 2006 to 2020, Ally Invest has received numerous awards each year.
In January 2020, they received the best online bank and savings bank from G.O. Banking Rates. In May 2020, they received another award from the American Business Awards. They have recognized regulatory bodies such as FINRA and SEC monitoring their activities.
Additional Offers - Is There An Ally Invest Promotion For New Users?
Looking for an Ally Invest promotion? With an Ally Invest open account, you can have access to numerous platform videos and educational resources to help you understand the trading market and make informed decisions. However, they don’t offer a demo account unless you are taking part in forex trading, which is a different platform on its own.
You can use the following additional offers from Ally Invest for learning and training:
- Excellent tutorial videos on the platform
- Training materials
- Videos resources for educational purposes
- Webinars
- Educational tools
The educational resources encompass a broad range of topics, and the video and informative articles have quality content which is excellent for beginner traders. The webinars concentrate on diverse topics that are also suitable for beginners. The training materials are found on another site called Ally Wallet Wise.
While there’s no Ally Invest promotion as such, the wealth of tools available to new account holders are more than enough to keep their users returning.
