M1 Finance review 2023: Is It A Great Investment App For Beginners
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There are many many best-investing apps in the market that offer investment products such as stocks, bonds, ETFs, and even cryptocurrencies for members to build their first investment portfolio and save money for their future retirement.
One of the low-cost investment apps that offer commission-free for members to accumulate their wealth over a long period of time is M1 Finance, the platform allows members to invest in ETFs and index funds to diversify their investment.
In this M1 Finance review, we will dive deeper into how M1 Finance works, its pros and cons, and other features, which you could determine if it is one of the best investing apps for beginners or not.
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Key Takeaways
- M1 Finance is one of the leading investment apps that offer both a robot advisor and other financial products such as individual stocks, bonds, ETFs, Index funds, etc.
- This low-cost investment app is great for those who plan to build their long-term investment portfolio and can make money out of investing as one of your passive income-earning streams.
- The firm is a member of the security investor protection corporation- SIPC, which provide the protection of members’ account covering up to $500,000.
- Moreover, the firm uses one of the high-security technologies- 4096-bit encryption, that protects members’ account financial information.
What is M1 Finance?
M1 Finance is one of the leading investment platforms that provide an automated investment tool, and robot advisor and offers a broad range of investment products such as ETFs, Index funds, individual stocks, and cryptocurrencies.
In addition, this low-cost investment app is great for those who plan to build their long-term investment portfolio and can make money out of investing as one of your passive income earning streams.
At the time of writing, the investment firm has more than 5 billion assets under its management, indicating that it has achieved some significant milestones and built its reputation in the market.
How does M1 Finance work?
M1 Finance offers members much more control over their investment portfolio in terms of managing their money and making decisions about how they invest their capital in the pacific product.
It’s because the firm believes investors must have their own investment strategy and the right mindset to invest and diversify their investment products for the long term.
By using M1 Finance automation tools and great features, they can take advantage to build a successful investment portfolio and accumulate their wealth in a long run.
Keep in mind that the firm is a member of the security investor protection corporation- SIPC, which provide the protection of members’ account covering up to $500,000.
The following are several key features that you should get familiar with if you are interested in this low-cost investment platform:
M1 Pies
One of the very first useful features you can take advantage of is the M1 Pies investing tool, which highlights your investment portfolio in a smaller pie.
For example, you could make your investment portfolio by investing in individual stocks, ETFs, cryptos, and bonds. The M1 pie will update your mix of investment products, which helps you to
manage easily and understand your portfolio performance over time.
Keep in mind that you will have to fill in a wide range of investment categories to create a pie investment portfolio and each pie is allowed to add up to 100 slices, which mark up stocks or ETFs, etc.
Importantly, the M1 pies investment tool will be super useful if you know what you are doing in terms of creating your own investment strategy and working towards achieving your financial goals in a long term.
Automated investing tool
One of the great benefits of using M1 Finance is the automated investing tool because the platform will automatically allocate your capital into your investment portfolio to help you build wealth over time.
This could be done when you add further funds or directly deposit money into your investment account.
With auto investment, the platform will invest your money into the portfolio that you have created when your cash account reaches a minimum of $25.
Alternatively, you can turn off the auto investment tool if you don’t want to and the platform will never automatically invest your money.
Crypto investment option
Crypto investing is a recently added product feature in the M1 Finance platform, which provides more investment options for members to diversify their crypto investment pie portfolio.
As mentioned before, the platform offers commission-free investing such as ETFs, Index Funds, stocks, and crypto. Thus, users would be able to build a long-term investment pie and achieve their financial goals.
Similar to the stock investment option, you have the opportunity to create your pie investment portfolio by just adding up a mixture of different slices of crypto products. Hence, it allows you to manage your investment portfolio and stay on track with your goals.
M1 Borrow
With the M1 borrow feature, users are allowed to borrow money against their investment account, which means they are eligible to borrow up to 40% of their investment portfolio.
Keep in mind that the rate of borrowing is considered one of the lowest rates in the market, which offers around 5% to 6.5%. If you have an M1 plus account, then the rate of borrowing will be as low as 5%.
In terms of paying back the borrowing fund, customers have several flexible options to pay back their borrowed money including an automated payment schedule.
For the M1 finance requirements to borrow money, you would need to have a chat with one of the expert team to see if your account can qualify for an M1 borrow. Remember, with custodial, trust, and retirement accounts, you can not apply for M1 borrow as it is unavailable for those accounts.
M1 Plus
In case you want to upgrade to M1 Plus from the free account, the annual fee for having the plus account will be around $125 per year. Indeed, with the M1 plus, you will definitely have several advantages over the free account in terms of borrowing, investing, etc.
Here are several benefits you would get from M1 plus:
- Borrow: as mentioned before, with M1 Plus, members will receive a borrowing rate as low as around 5%.
- Cashback: benefits of receiving a 1% cashback offer on debit cards.
- ATM fee: receive four monthly ATM fees reimbursement instead of- a free account.
- Invest: the opportunity to trade on 2 trading windows in a day: AM and PM
- Credit card: members receive $95 as a credit card waiver fee and they also can earn up to 10% for getting cashback rewards.
M1 Spend
M1 spend is available for both free and plus accounts. An M1 spend is a form of a reward checking account, which allow you to earn a cashback reward of 1% if you are a plus member.
In addition, M1 spend is considered a bank account, which allows you can deposit the money and keep the money in the account for as long as you want.
Keep in mind that M1 Spend checking accounts would be able to receive insurance coverage from FDIC. you can further find out more for more information.
How to Sign up?
In order to sign up with M1 Finance and make money investing for the long term. Here is the process of completing the registration:
- Fill down the application, your email, and personal detail.
- It should take up to several days for the firm to send you a notification email if your account is eligible to open an account with M1 Finance.
In case they need further information from you, then they will ask you to verify your account by submitting the verification documents.
Is M1 Finance safe?
M1 Finance is a safe investment platform due to the fact that the firm is a member of the security investor protection corporation- SIPC, which provide the protection of members’ account covering up to $500,000.
Moreover, the firm uses one of the high-security technologies- 4096-bit encryption, that protects members’ account financial information, as stated by the firm.
Is M1 Finance legit?
The answer is yes, M1 Finance is a legitimate investment brokerage company that offers a cross range of financial products such as checking, investing, and borrowing accounts, which creates much more convenient for members to manage their money in one place. In addition, the firm is a member of the SIPC and, with checking accounts, members might receive insured cover by FIDC of up to $250,000.
M1 Finance pros and cons
The following are the pros and cons of M1 Finance, which may help you to make an informed decision if this investment app is the right one for you.
Pros
- The platform is easy to use and navigate around.
- Offer a cross range of investment products such as stocks, ETFs, Index funds, and cryptos.
- With so many product features such as automated investment, investment pie portfolio tool, M1 borrow, and M1 plus.
- A member of the security investor protection corporation- SIPC.
- Commission-free investing.
Cons
- It works best for long-term and passive investors rather than active traders.
- Not available to invest in mutual funds and options trading.
Conclusion of M1 Finance review
M1 Finance is a reliable investment app that helps members to automate their investments and take control of the investment portfolio, which allows them to build their wealth in the long run.
Members have the opportunity to create an investment pie, which covers up to 100 slices as stocks and ETFs. And, can take advantage of automated investment to let the platform automatically invest the money into their investment portfolio.
Original published: https://jns-millennial.com/m1-finance-review/
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By Jiro Nguyen.
The content is only based on the author’s personal opinion and research experience. It is for informational purposes only and does not rely on as a comprehensive or substitute for professional advice.
