Founded way back in 1985, Firstrade is a regulated UK broker offering commission-free investing across a wide range of asset classes. At Firstrade you can invest in ETFs, Stocks, Mutual Funds, Options, Fixed Products and more.
But is Firstrade reliable? There are so many features at this online broker and beginners have plenty of educational tools to learn to trade. Our experts have conducted a thorough Firstrade review and have all the details on the cost of trading more than 2,000 ETFs with zero commissions.
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For our Firstrade review, we made sure to check how many offers were available. We noted 4 promotions straight away. Firstly, there is a free stocks promotion available to those who open an account for the first time. Upon account opening, a new trader will get 1 free stock and then a 2nd subsequent stock upon first deposit of $100 or more (or the UK equivalent). The free stocks are chosen at random using an algorithm, but new traders have a 1 in 100 chance of receiving a stock from the likes of Apple and Advanced Micro Devices.
Traders can also receive up to $200 in transfer rebates if they switch to Firstrade from another broker – check out our Interactive Brokers review for another broker. Another bonus currently available to US residents is a $25 rebate when you wire funds from your bank account. Finally, like many online brokers such as seen in our WeBull review, Firstrade is offering a referral bonus that nets traders free stocks.
We spent a lot of time on trading platforms during our Firstrade review. The Web platform is incredibly simple to navigate, and you can place an order from almost any section of the website or mobile app. We found it very easy to customize the platforms to our liking and it was just a matter of clicking and dragging modules to and from locations. We liked the customization far better than anything we saw in our M1-Finance review.
Charting tools are easy to access and the MultiCharts functionality is very intuitive. However, during our Firstrade review we certainly weren’t impressed by the lack of integration of charts with the order entry windows. During our Firstrade review, we felt that experienced traders may wish to choose the WebTrader over the mobile app simply because the order options were a little limited.
When it comes to accounts, Firstrade may have the most of any broker we’ve tested. Even more than in our JP Morgan You Invest review. Our Firstrade review found the following accounts:
Many of these accounts are only available to US residents, however the International Accounts covers most other regions. We thoroughly studied the accounts during our Firstrade Review and noted a lot of account management tools. All the accounts can be uniquely customized with columns positioned wherever you please. You look up your account history in a myriad of ways and you can even download your Firstrade account details to a personal finance software of your choosing.
Our Firstrade review in the US found a web trading platform and a mobile trading platform. The web platform gets big points for intuitiveness and a seriously simple design that really benefits beginner traders. However, we didn’t see any two-factor authorisation and a rather limited customizability. The platforms are designed by Firstrade and there are no third-party apps to use like MetaTrader 5. Interestingly, there are 3 languages available – English, Mandarin, and Cantonese. Customization is a weak point – other than changing the order of tabs, you can’t customize much else. The search function is great, however, and you can search by both asset name and ticker. Order types are simple too. No matter the account you hold you have 5 order types:
The mobile trading app is available for both Android and iOS devices. Just as intuitive as the Web Platform, not much is different here. Unfortunately, we noted that we couldn’t trade Mutual Funds or Bonds on the mobile app. The app has a darker theme than the web platform which works well, and price alerts are available too. Unfortunately, the mobile version also has no two-factor authorization although the app can be set to open for your biometrics on supported devices.
