Ally Invest Review

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Andrew Hayward
Ally Invest logo

In this Ally Invest review will highlight how the trading platforms provided to Ally Invest Investors include an adequate desktop platform for active (but not day traders) traders, a simplified and easy to use Ally mobile app, helpful trading tools, and access to all the major online brokers.

Ally Invest is a leading digital financial services company and a top 25 U.S. financial holding company offering financial products for consumers, businesses, automotive dealers, and corporate clients through an Ally Invest brokerage account.

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Who is Ally Invest

Ally Invest has an award-winning online bank, top-tier lending experiences, and a growing wealth management and brokerage platform. There is a $100 minimum investment in the Ally Invest brokerage account. The Ally Invest brokerage platform can trade mutual funds, forex trading, commission free trading, $0 account fees, options trades, low trading costs, etf trades, low Ally Invest margin rates, and a robo advisor service.

If you have more than $100,000 invested in your brokerage account you are eligible for Wealth Management which provides managed portfolios and a cash back option the more you invest in your brokerage accounts.

Ally Financial

Ally Financial is the parent company for Ally Invest. It is one of the largest full service auto finance operations in the country with a complementary auto-focused insurance business. Ally Financial’s corporate finance division provides senior secured loans to private equity-owned, U.S.-based middle market companies.

Ally Financial is a bank holding company organized in Delaware and headquartered in Detroit, Michigan. The company provides financial services including car finance, online banking via a direct bank, corporate lending, vehicle insurance, mortgage loans, and an electronic trading platform to trade financial assets.

The company was known as GMAC, an acronym for General Motors Acceptance Corporation, until 2010, until it changed it’s name to Ally Financial.

Ally Invest Ratings

Overall


Overall Rating:
80%
Fees:
50%
Account opening:
100%
Deposit and withdrawal:
60%
Trading platform:
80%
Markets and products:
100%
Research:
80%
Customer service:
100%
Education:
100%

Pros

  • Enormous AUM ($180 Billion in Assets Under Management) can assure you this brokerage is stable.
  • Access to Crypto trading through Crypto Trusts, Bitcoin Futures, and Crypto stocks.
  • Ally ventures identifies, invests in, and builds relationships with key startups.

Cons

  • $100 account minimum to start trading.
  • Does not accept crypto deposits or withdrawals of any kind.
  • Must upload pictures of SSN card or ID card or both to start using trading platforms.
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Ally Invest History

The company was founded in 1919 by General Motors (GM) as the General Motors Acceptance Corporation (GMAC) to provide financing to automotive customers. In 1939, the company founded Motors Insurance Corporation and entered the vehicle investment requirements.

In 1985, while GM was under the leadership of Roger Smith, who sought to diversify the company, GMAC formed GMAC Mortgage and acquired Colonial Mortgage as well as the servicing arm of Norwest Mortgage, which included an $11 billion mortgage portfolio.

In 1991, the company was forced to write-off $275 million in bad debt as part of a $436 million loss suffered from fraud committed by John McNamara, who ran a Ponzi scheme.

On December 24, 2008, the Federal Reserve accepted the company’s application to become a bank holding company. In January 2009, the company closed Nuvell Financial Services, its subprime lending division.

As a result of losses in GMAC ResCap, the United States Department of the Treasury invested $17.2 billion in the company in 2008–2009. The Treasury sold its last stake in the company in 2014, recovering $19.6 billion from its $17.2 billion investment.

In May 2016, Ally Bank re-entered the mortgage business with the launch of its direct-to-consumer offering called Ally Home. In April 2019, Ally Home partnered with Better.com to launch a digital mortgage platform.

In December of 2021, Ally acquired Fair Square Financial, a credit card company, for $750 million and subsequently rebranded the subsidiary and product as an Ally Credit Card.

Opening an Ally Invest Account

Opening an account with Ally is fairly easy, you provide the standard SSN, Know Your Customer (KYC) information, etc.

They could cut down on a fair bit of verbiage and make it simpler and faster to enroll compared to other sites.

There is a $100 minimum account fee for Ally Invest, $100,000 for Wealth Management.

Ally Invest Accounts

  • No commission stocks, ETFs
  • $.65 options + $.50 contract fee per leg
  • $100 account minimum needed
  • Bonds
    • $1 per Bond, $10 minimum and $250 maximum
  • Mutual funds
    • No Load are free, Load mutual fund fees are governed by their individual prospectuses
  • Margin accounts
  • Robo portfolios
    • Cash enhanced (30% in cash no matter what)
    • Market focused (2% in cash and a .3% advisory fee)
    • Socially responsible fund
    • Tax optimized fund
    • Core fund
    • Income fund
    • Wealth Management
      • Blended fee of .75-.85%
      • Already have an account with Ally
      • Minimum of $100,000 in assets under care

Ally Invest Offers

Ally Invest offers a tiered reward system for how much you deposit. From $10,000 to $24,999 you receive $100. For more than 2MM, you receive a $3000 bonus which is the maximum reward for depositing an amount with Ally Invest.

Ally Invest Customer Service

Ally Invest takes pride in providing the best service possible. Their brokers and service team are available 8 am through 6 pm EST to answer your investment and account questions.

Having access to a real person during market hours is very important while investing.

Security for Ally Invest Customers

As a member of the Securities Investor Protection Corporation (SIPC), funds are available to meet customer claims up to a ceiling of $500,000, including a maximum of $250,000 for cash claims.

Ally Financial’s clearing firm, Apex Clearing, has also purchased an additional insurance policy through a group of London Underwriters supplement SIPC protection. This policy becomes available to customers in the event that SIPC limits are exhausted and provides protection for securities and cash up to an aggregate of $150 million.

This insurance is provided to pay amounts in addition to those returned in a SIPC liquidation proceeding. It’s limited to a combined return to any customer from a Trustee, SIPC and London Underwriters of $37.5 million, including cash of up to $900,000. Like SIPC protection, it doesn’t protect against a loss in the market value of securities.

Ally Invest Privacy Policy

All financial companies need to share customers’ personal information to run their everyday business. In the section below, we list the reasons financial companies can share their customers’ personal information; the reasons Ally chooses to share; and whether you can limit this sharing based on Federal law:

  • For our everyday business purposes – such as to process your transactions, maintain your account(s), respond to court orders and legal investigation, or report to credit bureaus YES Ally Shares, NO You Cannot Limit
  • For our marketing purposes – to offer our products and services to you YES Ally Shares, NO You cannot limit
  • For joint marketing with other financial companies YES Ally Shares NO You cannot Limit
  • For our affiliates’ everyday business purposes – information about your transactions and experiences YES Ally Shares NO You cannot limit
  • For our affiliates’ everyday business purposes – information about your credit worthiness YES Ally Shares, YES you can limit
  • For our affiliates to market to you YES Ally Shares YES You can limit
  • For nonaffiliates to market to you YES Ally Shares YES You can limit

Why can’t I limit all sharing at Ally Invest?

Federal law dictates which information can be limited by consumers, and which information is important and must be available for sharing in the course of normal business.

Other questions I get asked about Ally Invest

Below are some of the common questions asked about the Ally Invest trading platform, forex trading, account minimums and account fees. My Ally Invest Review also looks at if Ally Invest is good for beginners

Can you lose money with Ally Invest?

Ally invest is a safe and legit investing service. The app is SIPC-insured for up to $500,000 and FDIC-insured for up to $250,000 for cash balances. They have also taken out an insurance contract with Lloyd’s of London for $37.5 million, up to $900,000 per account.

However, your investments aren’t protected from normal market losses.

Is Ally Invest a trustable site?

Ally Invest is a safe and secure financial services app. They use some of the highest security measures and encryption methods to prevent your data from being stolen. Although nothing is 100% infallible, they take many steps to keep your account and information protected when you use Ally invest.

How much money does Ally Invest take when you withdraw?

Ally will transfer your fund for free, however wire transfers are $30.

Does Ally invest have a mobile app

Yes there is an Ally mobile app which is easy to use

What is better than Ally Invest?

Interactive Brokers, Charles Schwab, TD Ameritrade, Fidelity. There is a reason these are well known brokers (at least in the U.S.). They execute, they make smart investments or provide intelligent research advice.

They have dropped most trading fees, and they all have impressive web, desktop, and mobile apps for trading. They also all have access to speaking with a human at various times during trading hours, because they know when you are trading and the service goes down it’s a very nervous and difficult time.

How do I cancel my money back on Ally invest?

It is pretty simple: sell all of your assets, and close the account through the web application.

Does Ally Invest invest in individual stocks?

No, Ally only invests in ETF’s and Crypto-ETF’s.

What are the Ally Invest Checking Cash, Purchase and Transfer Limits?

Ally has no checking, purchase, or transfer limits.

What is Ally Advisers, LLC?

Ally Advisers is a very old and historically important company, as they used to be GMAC (General Motors Acceptance Corporation). They hve AUM (Assets Under Management) of $182 billion.

They have only paid out $12,500 in settlement fees according to the Customer Financial Disclosure (CRD) for arbitration which is essentially nothing with the size of Ally Advisers. This is a very good sign for the security and trustworthiness of Ally Advisers.

Are there any monthly limits

Ally has no monthly deposits or withdrawal limits.

Is Ally Invest good for beginners?

Yes, Ally Invest has a great set of educational tools for new beginners and active investors alike. The Ally Invest platforms are simplified and easy to use for Ally Invest customers.

Can you cancel Ally Invest at any time?

Yes, but there is an inactivity charge of $50 if your total account values is less than $2500 and you haven’t placed any commission trades in a 12 month period.

They also charge $100.00 for IRA termination fees and transferring cash back to your bank. Most online brokers charge between $20 and $60 for liquidating IRA’s.

What happens if Ally Invest goes out of business?

You are protected by the SIPC and FINRA up to $500,000. They’ve also taken out an insurance policy up to $37.5 million, with individual limits up to $900,000.

Dividends Offered

All dividends are automatically re-invested in the original ETF through a Dividend Re-Investment Program (DRIPs), unless you change the option to add dividends to your account instead.

Can you use Zelle with Ally Invest?

Log in to your Ally Bank account and select Zelle® from the Payments menu. Then choose the primary account you’d like to use. Once you verify that your profile information is correct, you can start using Zelle.

Can you trade Forex on Ally Invest?

The short answer is yes. The more complete answer is Foreign exchange trading is offered through Ally Forex. Ally Forex and Ally Invest are separate, but affiliated companies. Forex accounts are offered to self-directed investors and are not protected by the Securities Investor Protection Corp. (SIPC) or Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. (FDIC).

Ally Forex acts as an introducing broker to GAIN Capital Group, LLC. Your forex account is held and maintained at GAIN Capital who serves as the clearing agent and counterparty to your trades. GAIN Capital is registered with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) and is a member of the National Futures Association (NFA) (ID # 0339826). Ally Forex is a member of the National Futures Association (ID # 0408077).

Are Penny stocks tradable?

Technically yes penny stocks are tradable, but the commission costs for ETFs below $2.00 make it a losing trade from the beginning.

Is day trading illegal?

No, but day trading in Ally Invest is technically called “Pattern Day Trading” and consists of more than 4 trades per week. You have to qualify with Ally Invest and the exchanges to qualify. You should assess your personal financial situation before you apply for PDT (Pattern Day Trading).

How long must you hold a stock to avoid capital gains?

Because long-term capital gains are generally taxed at a more favorable rate than short-term capital gains, you can minimize your capital gains tax by holding assets for a year or more.

Does capital gain count as income?

Capital gains are generally included in taxable income, but in most cases, are taxed at a lower rate. A capital gain is realized when a capital asset is sold or exchanged at a price higher than its basis. Basis is an asset’s purchase price, plus commissions and the cost of improvements less depreciation.

My Final Verdict: Is Ally Invest any good?

Through this comprehensive ally invest review 2023 you should get the sense that Ally Invest is a large online discount broker, not as nimble as some of the $0-cost brokerages which have sprung up in the past few years.

However, Ally Invest has the history to give a sense of security for an Ally Invest account.

Ally Invest Frequently Asked Questions

Does Ally Invest have retirement options?

Yes Ally Invest has the following retirement options; IRA High Yield CD, IRA Raise Your Rate CD, IRA Online Savings, 401(k)s and Roth or traditional IRA and Robo Portfolios are tuned towards a long timeline. You can roll any IRA or investment account within Ally Invest for free.

Does Ally Invest have a physical location I can go to?

No Ally Invest has no physical locations that you can go to. As an online-only bank, customers don’t have access to cash account at their brokerage outside of what they can do using the If you prefer brick-and-mortar banking service, you’ll have to look elsewhere. Also, Ally Invest does not accept traditional cash deposits.

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