Investment Apps: Invest on the Go!
Ever since the Great Recession, confidence in the banking industry has taken a downturn, especially among millennials. This event has coincided with the meteoric rise of the use of mobile phone apps. Tech companies are creating new ways for consumers to invest at a much lower cost and with much less effort than if customers invested through conventional methods. For millennials investment apps replaced the need for investment banks.
Acorns
Acorns is one of the newest and innovative apps on the market. It is directly targeted at millennials. If you are between the ages of 18-23. The app is free for college students with a valid .edu address for up to four years from date of registration. The app itself is simple and easy to use. All that you have to do is enter in your credit card information and every time that you make a credit card purchase the app rounds up that purchase to the nearest dollar. Acorns will automatically invest this money based on a risk assessment that the user fills out when downloading the app. How easy is that? You are making money without even having to think about!
Robinhood
Have you ever wanted to be a stockbroker? If yes, then the Robinhood app is the app for you! Why try to have a stock broker perform your trades when you can do it yourself? Robinhood allows for you to buy and sell stocks at your own leisure on the exchanges such as the NASDAQ and the New York Stock Exchange. This app requires more research than apps such as Acorns because it does not do the trading for you. It allows for you to be more involved in your own trading giving you that much more satisfaction when you make a profit! The best part about Robinhood is that all trades are free. There are no hidden fees. The downside to Robinhood is that there is a three-day waiting period from the time you sell a stock to the point in which you receive the cash. This restricts the ability to have a quick turnaround from the time you sell your stock to when you can buy a new one with the profit.
Loyal3
One of the easiest ways that allows for stock brokers to make a lot of money is to buy and sell Initial Public Offerings (IPO’S). IPO’s are the price that stocks are initially sold at once they hit the market. Loyal3 is an investing app that allows you to purchase some IPO’s. This is one of its greatest upsides. This app also allows for you to invest in some large companies, but it does not allow for you to trade on exchanges such as NASDAQ and the New York Stock Exchange like Robinhood. Loyal3 lets you set up a regular investing interval plan that you control that allows for you to purchase partial shares of companies. There are no fees because the app uses advertising to make revenue. The downside to Loyal3 is that it does not allow for you to sell your stocks at the given market price. Instead when you sell or buy a stock, that trade is rolled into a bundle of other purchases and sales through the app the following day, which leads to a different market price than what the market price was when the trade was initiated.
Overall, trading through phone apps is the next cornerstone in financial investing. With banks still not being viewed as trustworthy to millennials, they are looking for different outlets to invest. Furthermore, the millennial generation is highlighted by its desire for easy and quick mobile use of products. Investment apps are the perfect outlet for this. As more people become comfortable with the idea that they can invest instantly from their phone, the values of the apps will only increase. This is the next best and coolest frontier in the investment market.
Alex Finkel – Content Creator
