If you are new to the world of stock investing, you need an app that makes it easier to buy and sell stocks. It should also be easier to setup, faster deposits, and withdrawals (the profits).
Whenever you are learning to invest in stocks for the first time, your experience as a user goes a long way in how you trade stocks. So, if it’s an easy-peasy experience, you will learn faster and become a pro in no time.
I began investing through Wealthsimple Trade and I still use it as my primary stock trading app. I’ve used other platforms and if I were to begin my investing journey again today, I would still choose Wealthsimple Trade.
Here are seven reasons why Wealthsimple Trade should be your top choice as a beginner investor in Canada.
1.Commission Free Trading
You must have seen Youtubers in the US raving about Robinhood, Webull etc as they are the leading commission free trading apps in the US. Unfortunately, they are not available for Canadian investors like you and me.
Thankfully, we have Wealthsimple Trade, Canada’s only commission free trading app.
You can buy both Canadian stocks, US stocks and ETFs that are listed on major exchanges like NASDAQ, NYSE and TSX
2. Fractional Investing
Fractional Trading or Fractional Investing is a type of stock trading in which you can buy just a fraction of a share of any company.
If you are a big fan of Elon Musk and if you would like to purchase a share of TESLA, you would have to spend $1003.80 as of this writing.
However, Wealthsimple Trade is the only Canadian app that allows you to buy a fraction of a share of TESLA for as little as $1.
This means that if you want to invest a set amount of $100 every month into a growth stock like Tesla or Apple, it is possible with Wealthsimple Trade. Depending on how much the stock is trading for on that particular day, you would receive a fraction of the share for the amount you invest.
What’s more? If the stock pays out dividends, you will receive dividends proportional to the number of shares that you own.
3. Premium Subscription at just $3 per month
For just the price of an Iced Capp at Tim Horton’s, Wealthsimple Trade offers you their premium subscription. It comes with two amazing super powers.
Instant funding
can really save you a lot of money and time. Let’s say there is a big dip in
the stock market during the market hours due to an external catalyst, you can
take advantage of the red day by buying more of the stocks you believe in
almost instantly.
In earlier days of
Wealthsimple Trade, it used to take 1 to 2 business days for the deposit from
the bank to hit your trading account.
A lot can happen
in a couple of days. So instant deposits are really a godsend, and it is upto
$5000 which makes it amazing.
Snap quotes are
live quotes at just a click of a button. It’s a new add-on for premium users
and it is definitely worth upgrading as the premium subscription comes at just
$3 per month.
For normal users,
quotes are delayed by 15 minutes, and you will have to use a different app like
Yahoo finance to check the live prices. Instead upgrade to premium and use just
1 app.
4. Ease of Use
In terms of ease
of use, Wealthsimple Trade is simply the best stock trading app in Canada.
Having used both Wealthsimple Trade & Questrade mobile apps, I would pick
WS Trade any day.
The app is
designed thoughtfully, and it is really clean.
No clutter and everything will be pretty easy to navigate from day 1.
In some ways, they
are similar to Apple. Features take a while to come but when they arrive, they
are the best ones and they beat everything else hands down.
- Stock Rewards Program
Wealthsimple Trade
has a referral program that can reward you with cash value of stock that is
worth up to $4500. Yes, you read that right.
Imagine referring
your friend or your spouse to get started with investing using Wealthsimple
Trade and you are rewarded with a cash value of 1 share of Amazon.
That’s $3444 as of
today.
The best part is
the surprise element. It could be small, or it could be huge like Amazon, Tesla,
Shopify, or Google as it is randomly chosen.
And this surprise gift is not just for you, your friend’s first stock is on Wealthsimple Trade as well.
6. Learn as you
grow your investment portfolio
If you are new to stock
investing, Wealthsimple Trade will have constant pointers on how specific order
types like limit sells, limit buys and others work.
Also, when there
is a highly volatile stock as a result of a short squeeze like GME or AMC from early
this year, Wealthsimple Trade will also trigger a cautionary alert before you execute
the buy or sell order.
7. Upcoming Features
Every few months,
Wealthsimple Trade comes up with exciting features. Exclusive features like USD
accounts, unlimited price alerts are coming soon on Wealthsimple plus plan.
It starts at
$10 at month
One of the biggest
pet peeves of Wealthsimple Trade users is the currency exchange fees every time
an order is processed. For every buy and every sell, Wealthsimple Trade does
the conversion (for a 1.5% foreign exchange fee) and that’s how they make their
money as all trades are commission-free.
Once the plus plan
rolls out, you can convert a tidy sum of CAD to fund your USD account. You will
incur a 1.5% foreign exchange fee for that one transaction.
And as long as you
do your trades using your US account, buying, and selling US stocks should be
free. No currency exchange fee, whatso ever. Do as many trades as you like. It’s
all free.
Let’s say you do
10 trades a month on US Stocks, you are only looking at the $10 monthly fee.
Compare that to Questrade, where they charge $4.99 for all stock orders (buy or
sell). Questrade will cost you $50 compared to just $10 on Wealthsimple Trade.
We will know more
when these features drop in 2022.
And for all the
above reasons, Wealthsimple Trade is simply the best stock investing app in
Canada for beginners.
