Ally Invest is an arm of a larger company that is into banking services, lending, and other related services called Ally Financials. Ally Financials has an arm that offers online brokerage, formerly called TradeKing but now more popularly known as Ally Invest.
The company is one of the new brokers that just hit the market in recent times. Investors and active traders alike are beginning to look into trading and investing on Ally invest because of their $0 commission on the trade. This makes them one of the best brokers for active traders.
Another unique fact about Ally invest is that they operate a no-account minimum policy that encourages new investors and novices to want to try them out. This means that traders will not have to worry about start-up capital as any amount you have is good to go. This is why experienced traders are finding Ally to invest a promising broker to trade on.
Ally Invest has been on the path of evolution to become more attractive in their outlook. As an online brokerage firm, they have continued to make even greater efforts towards becoming more relevant to traders.
In this Ally Invest review, you are going to be seeing all the relevant information you to decide whether this platform fits your trading interests or not. An informed decision is essential in choice-making and this review will help you with information.
Popularity
Ally invest is gaining momentum as a broker to be trusted and the company is putting more efforts to gain more active traders. To achieve this, they have leveraged their banking services and integrated it to their online brokerage platform. They have also worked to make their InvestLIVE platform customizable with an option to stream quotes. All this are geared towards increasing their popularity in days to come.
However, presently, they are not all that popular yet. This low popularity is in comparison to other brokerage firm that has more traffic and more traders.
As of August 26, 2020, Ally invest has just about 388,000 number of users and about 43,000 numbers on Twitter, and 342,000 followers on Facebook. This is why their popularity on mainstream media is just at the medium level. They are yet to receive any notable awards but have a mother company that has received some notable ones- Ally Bank. Check the statistics below for more information.
| Query | Answer | Reference URL | Date |
| Number of users (approximate) | 388K | https://www.ally.com/about/company-structure/ | 26 Aug 2020 |
| Website traffic (estimated) | 16m | https://www.similarweb.com/website/ally.com/ | 26 Aug 2020 |
| # results on web | 50m | https://www.google.com/ | 26 Aug 2020 |
| Search volume Google | 70K | https://searchvolume.io | 26 Aug 2020 |
| Twitter followers | 43K | https://twitter.com/ally | 26 Aug 2020 |
| FB followers | 342K | https://www.facebook.com/ally | 26 Aug 2020 |
| How popular on mainstream media? | Medium | Benzinga, Business Insider, Forbes, CBNBC, MarketWatch | 26 Aug 2020 |
| Negative media? | Low | https://www.consumerfinance.gov/about-us/newsroom/cfpb-and-doj-order-ally-to-pay-80-million-to-consumers-harmed-by-discriminatory-auto-loan-pricing/ | 26 Aug 2020 |
| Notable awards | None, but Ally Bank has consistently received awards | https://media.ally.com/awards-recognition | 26 Aug 2020 |
User Rating
There are not many statistics on Ally Invest and, therefore, one can’t categorically give a rating authoritatively. The total reviews they have is about 60 on TrustPilot, and just 1 on SiteJabber, with a positive review of about 7%.
Ally invest as a lot of work to do to increase their ratings. However, users’ comments mostly show that Ally invest is quite user-friendly. The overall user experience is 2.35/5 out of about 100 reviews. This is because most users feel as though Ally invest is a backward step from TradeKing. This may not necessarily be so and their feelings may just be because they want TradeKing to have remained TradeKing.
Background Information
Ally Financial became the mother company of Ally Invest when they purchased TradeKing in 2016 and named it as Ally Invest.
The company has grown over the years, as they have become more accommodating to retails investors in the line of Forex trading, spread betting, share dealing Trading and CFD Trading. Their head office is in the United States and they have been putting efforts to trying to meet the needs of the financial markets as a broker.
The name of the CEO is Jeffrey. J. Brown. He was the CEO and President of the Ally’s Dealer Financial Services that is focused on auto services and insurance with a total of about 8700 employees.
| Company public/private | Public | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ally_Financial |
| Revenue Data | – | – |
| CEO and bio | Jeffrey J. Brown – Prior to being named CEO, Brown was president and CEO of Ally’s Dealer Financial Services business where he oversaw the company’s auto finance, insurance and auto servicing operations. | https://media.ally.com/leadership-brown |
| Number of employees | 8700 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ally_Financial |
| Notable investors (private companies) | None | https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/ally-bank |
Security
Ally Invest has all the standard security expected of an online trading platform. The basic security includes, but not restricted to the routine creation of login details that is unique to each trader. This unique login details comes with a two-factor authentication which is needed for logins.
There mobile app has also adopted biometric entry, making it hard to breach the security of their app. It is worthy of note that no newsworthy breach has been reported since 2019 by the IDTRC (Identity Theft Research Center).
| Query | Answer | Reference URL |
| HTTPS Certificate | Yes | https://www.ally.com/invest/ |
| 2FA ? | Yes | https://www.ally.com/security/password-security-tips.html |
| Device monitoring? | Yes | https://www.ally.com/security/password-security-tips.html |
| New device extra security? | Yes | https://www.ally.com/security/password-security-tips.html |
Fees & Offering
The commissions on Ally invest are quite friendly as they offer zero commission on U.S stock exchanges. The implication of this is that there are no commissions when trading ETFs or equities. Per-leg commission is not on option trades, and there are zero charges to open and close contracts that are less than $0.50.
Trading forex on Ally Invest has no commission even though they take the spread. Just in case you are looking to close the account, it attracts no commission. On the other hand, the commission on a mutual fund is $9.95.
| Query | Answer | Reference URL |
| Account minimum | None | https://www.ally.com/help/invest/opening-an-account.html |
| Account fixed fees | None | https://www.ally.com/help/invest/opening-an-account.html |
| Fractional shares? | Yes | https://www.ally.com/help/invest/trading.html |
| Margin costs | Varies | https://www.ally.com/invest/self-directed-trading/margin-account/ |
| ETF buying fees | None | https://www.ally.com/go/invest/commissions-and-fees/ |
| Stock buying fees | None | https://www.ally.com/go/invest/commissions-and-fees/ |
| Option buying fees | 50¢ per contract traded | https://www.ally.com/go/invest/commissions-and-fees/ |
| Short selling fees | None | https://www.ally.com/go/invest/commissions-and-fees/ |
| Futures buying fees | None | https://www.ally.com/go/invest/commissions-and-fees/ |
| Future options buying fees | – | – |
| Cryptocurrency fees | Not available | – |
| Fixed income fees | None | https://www.ally.com/go/invest/commissions-and-fees/ |
| Mutual funds fees | None | https://www.ally.com/go/invest/commissions-and-fees/ |
Trading App
The pattern of operation of Ally Invest’s Trading App is quite straightforward and simple but the available options are limited when compared to other brokers. This leads to the inability of active traders to trade some assets on their trading app.
Also, it is noteworthy that Ally Invest has good customers care relations. Their customer support covers different languages which include English, Czech, French, Spanish, Polish, Romanian, to mention a few.
However, they have not be rated well, because users have complained about slow responses. On the plus side, they allow different methods for customer support ranging from email support to live chats and phone support. This shows that there trading app has the potential to become well serving for customers in the recent future.
Presently, the Ally Invest app doesn’t have many usages, going by the amounts of download on android play store and IOS. There are also frequent complaints that the app crashes a lot.
| Query | Answer | Reference URL |
| Android app # installs | 5K+ | https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.ally.investforex |
| Android app # reviews | 18 | https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.ally.investforex |
| iPhone app # reviews | 78 | https://apps.apple.com/us/app/ally-invest-forex/id1385692078 |
| Android app rating | 2.3 / 5 | https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.ally.investforex |
| iPhone app rating | 2.4 / 5 | https://apps.apple.com/us/app/ally-invest-forex/id1385692078 |
| Common compliments on app | App is responsive and fast. | https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.ally.investforex https://apps.apple.com/us/app/ally-invest-forex/id1385692078 |
| Common complaints on app | App crashes a lot. | https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.ally.investforex https://apps.apple.com/us/app/ally-invest-forex/id1385692078 |
| Weighted average app rating | 2.35 / 5 | https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.ally.investforex https://apps.apple.com/us/app/ally-invest-forex/id1385692078 |
Final conclusions:
Trading on Ally Invest is quite simple and straightforward, but the available trading options on it are limited making it difficult to diversify your portfolio. This is why Ally invest will have to work on their customers’ satisfaction by increasing the spectrum of their trading options. This will help active traders to have a lot of options in trading. Generally, Ally invest will yet see better days as their parent company are well trusted and have a good reputation in the financial market.