Webull is actually the very first broker that I used when starting my investment journey a few years ago. Webull has a smart device app, a desktop app, and a website you can use to trade. The app is the most powerful of the options from my experience, although the app is probably best for a larger screen such as a tablet if you want to take advantage of the advanced charting features. I would say of the brokers I have used so far, Webull is the platform that feels most like a professional platform despite the fact that it is free to use. It by far offers the most features and gives access to the most data. That professional feel and deluge of features and information does make it a bit overwhelming for beginning traders though, so if you choose this broker as your first you should expect to take a bit of time to learn how to use it. Just like Robinhood, Webull offers commission free trading, meaning there are no fees associated with trading stocks, ETFs, mutual funds, options, and some OTC stocks. The lack of fees makes it an accessible platform. As I had mentioned, Webull offers access to a ton of data, too much to mention all in one brief review. In the app they have several sections dedicated to information for each stock. They have the basic trading information such as high, low, close, volume, market cap, etc. all available in a quick access drop down menu for each stock. You can access recent news for each company in the news tab. They also have a "Feeds" tab which allows investors to chat about each stock. This "Feeds" tab can allow for interesting conversations, but also be ready to see a lot of spam. Next they have the Analysis tab which presents ratings from professional analysts for most stocks. This generally displays the number of strong buy, buy, hold, sell, and strong sell ratings, as well as consensus price targets. Lower in the analysis tab they present technical analysis signals indicating bullish or bearish predictions in the short, medium, or long-term. We can dive deeper into what technical analysis is in another post. The last tab, "Company" offers access to company financial information from quarterly and annual reports organized into easy to digest figures. Within the "Company" tab they also present information about the company in general. This generally includes a brief summary of the company, the names and incomes of the executives, as well as the breakdown of shareholders (institutional, insiders, retail). Webull also offeres advanced trading features. They have the basic limit, market, stop, stop limit, and trailing stop orders similar to most brokers, but then they also have more advanced group orders. These group orders allow you to setup whole trading strategies such as a "limit +take profit" order which allows you to setup a limit buy order that as soon as it is executed automatically places a limit sell order. This could be used when you are planning to quickly purchase a stock and exit with a profit within a short time frame. They also have other orders such as "one-triggers-the-others" which is as it sounds, it lets you place one order that when executed automatically places other orders. These advanced trading features can help an individual trader setup lightning fast orders that can take advantage of short term moves that a retail trader wouldn't otherwise be able to act quickly enough on. Webull does offer options trading with many features. It allows trading of the basic options such as buying calls and puts as well as selling covered calls and cash-secured puts. Beyond that it does offer access to more advanced strategies such as straddles, but I don't have experience using those so I will not comment on those features. I have traded options a few times through Webull and found it to be very smooth. Only once did I run into a bit of a hiccup and that was when they incorrectly issued a margin call for a covered call option. This was corrected quickly by their customer support though. Webull also offers IPO access, but unlike Robinhood they do not have very strict criteria for which ones are listed. This can be viewed as either a positive or negative. The positive would be that it allows users access to many more opportunities. The negative could be that it exposes investors to potentially more risky investment opportunities. As for account types, Webull offers cash, margin, and IRA accounts. You can even have more than one account with them, one of each type. The transition between each account is very easy within the app as well. You just go to settings->switch account, then select the account you want to switch to. Webull does offer advanced data such as level 2 market data and foreign markets data for a fee. Last I checked the level 2 market data was available for $1.99 a month, which is not a bad price if you are actively using that data. Extra features: Webull also offers many other features such as paper trading (trading with fake money for practice), a learning center, access to screeners for both stocks and options, social and community features, among others. They also offer a stock lending program which allows you to earn a little bit of interest by lending your shares to short sellers. Webull also offers advanced charting features which allows you to draw on charts and take notes, which can be useful for active traders. Tax lots: Just like Robinhood, Webull does not allow traders control of their tax lots. They use first-in-first-out (FIFO). Drawbacks: One of the main annoyances I have with Webull is that they don't allow you to make purchases of less than 100 shares for stocks that trade for less than $1 per share and they don't let you purchase less than 1000 shares for stocks that trade for less than $0.10 a share. This can be somewhat restricting for traders with small accounts since they can't purchase shares of stock that are more affordable. As well, despite them offering fractional share trading, it is limited to only certain companies and requires a minimum purchase of $5, which in my opinion is also unnecessarily limiting to traders with small accounts. Overall my rating for Webull is 8/10. They offer many advanced features, charting functions, and access to a deluge of data, which makes it appealing to advanced traders. Due to the complexity of the platform and limitations on making small trades it is not an ideal platform for beginning traders, and that is where Webull loses points for me. If they made the platform more adaptable, such that a simple intuitive interface could be given to beginning traders and traders could opt-in for more advanced features as they learn, I would give them a higher rating. If you decide that Webull is the right broker for you consider signing up with this referral (https://a.webull.com/B8feXvEobYAJYID00q). Webull often has fairly generous promotions to get free stock when signing up when referred by another user. *This review is my own personal opinion. As well, information here is accurate to the best of my knowledge as of December 2, 2022. Brokers may change their offerings over time so information presented here may become inaccurate.
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Nathan HautHi, I am a current graduate student studying computational mathematics. I have an interest in investing and I invest as a hobby. This blog is intended to share my thoughts and experiences. ArchivesCategories
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