How to Choose the Best Online Investment Platform

With a vast array of online investment platforms to look at, it can be a minefield trying to figure out the right one for you.

If you want to make decent profits through investing, the brokerage you select should fit the way you learn and make clear sense to you. Plus, it should be user-friendly from the word go!

Choosing the best online investment platform for new investors can translate into an exciting new stream of income or an annoying disappointment. In this guide, we’ll let you know how to choose a platform to suit your particular needs.

Identify Your Needs

Take time to think about what is most relevant to you in a trading platform before you jump in and sign up for the first platform you come across. Depending on your investing goals and what knowledge you have about investing, your needs will be different.

When you’re getting started, essential instructional tools, thorough glossaries, simple access to support, and the option to do practice trading before playing with real money should be priorities.

Below are questions to ask yourself to help you decide on which platform could work for you. These questions have no right or wrong answers. Make an honest assessment of how much energy, time, and effort you’re willing and able to devote to your assets.

It’s OK if your answers alter over time. Don’t try to foresee all of your demands and objectives for the remainder of your life. Begin where you are right now.

Do You Want To Do Active or Passive Investing?

As an active investor, you commit yourself full-time or at least part-time to carry out trades. Do you want to follow the current market trends and make daily or weekly profits from your decisions?

Passive trading is when you buy and hold stocks or other investment instruments long-term. This approach is a slower and less dynamic approach where you wait for your investments to grow.

What Type of Trades Do You Want to Make?

Do you want an investment platform with a greater range of resources to assist you in uncovering possibilities? Or, are you the type of investor who knows what they want to do and needs a platform that makes it quick and easy to execute trades?

What types of securities are you concentrating on? Mutual funds, stocks, and exchange-traded funds (ETFs)? Do you wish to trade futures, options, and fixed-income instruments if you’re more advanced? What about margin trading? Do you require after-hours trading, conditional orders, or automated trading capabilities?

What Level of Help Do You Need?

Would you want to do it yourself and discover how to understand financial data to locate and execute trades? Or, would you rather employ a professional?

Where are you experience-wise if you want to do it yourself? What resources will you require to expand your knowledge? Will you require quick access to support persons, or can you learn everything you need to know using online educational resources? Would you want to call in and have a broker assist you with the procedure, or will you prefer to make trades online?

What Are Your Main Investing Goals?

Why have you decided to invest? Are you looking for a way to augment your regular income to raise your level of living? Do you have a specific expense or event in mind that you’d like to fund?

Do you expect this to become your principal source of income in the future? Do you wish to start saving for retirement? If so, do you already have a retirement account, or will you need to open one with your selected brokerage?

Narrow Down Your Choices

After answering many of the questions we posed in the previous sections, you should have a few platforms to choose from. Next, you need to narrow down your choices by ensuring the platforms you are looking at include certain necessary factors.

To find the best investment platform, look for these factors:

  • Membership to well know regulatory bodies, such as FINRA.
  • Good online account protection and security.
  • Various brokerage account choices.
  • Clear expression of its fees.
  • The type of trading commission they employ.

It’s worth reading up reviews about all of these factors for the platforms that interest you the most. It’s a good idea to write down all the information you find so you can easily compare each platform for your needs.

Test Out the Platform

Now that you have maybe two or three online brokerages in mind, it’s time to test them out. It’s surprising how you might find you’ll gel with one platform’s usability over another.

When using the platform, ask yourself questions such as:

  • Are there beginner resources to make use of?
  • Does the search function work well?
  • Is the platform intuitive to navigate?
  • Where does the platform source its information?
  • How easy is it to interpret the data they provide?
  • Do they provide much analysis and data?

Of course, everyone will have their particular expectations and needs. The questions above are to, at the very least, inspire you to find the right platform for you.

We should also mention that you can withdraw and deposit funds into an investment platform is a vital aspect to consider. 

Find out:

  • What options are available for depositing funds into your account?
  • What’s the time it takes for deposits to fund your account?
  • How long does it take to withdraw your funds?
  • How are interest payments or dividends paid?

You can research much further into this side of things to ensure the account fits your needs. For example, you may require them to accept Paypal for deposits and withdrawals. Or, you might want an account that accepts cryptocurrencies.

Checking out reviews is a great way to answer a lot of these questions. Here we have whitebox erfahrungen, which is a solid review example written in German or English – whatever your preference.

The Best Online Investment Platform for You

The most important thing to consider when looking for the best investment platform is that it should fit your specific needs. When you read online reviews, the reviewer might rate a platform highly, yet, their needs may differ from yours. So it’s best to get your criteria in order before searching for the right place to invest.

Thanks for reading, and good luck! Please also check out some of our other informative blog posts.