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Our Take

Webull is for investors who need to get into financial markets with no minimum account sizes and commission-free trading. Webull shouldn’t be a full-services broker, so its customers need a little bit of a DIY approach on some features of portfolio management. Webull customers have skewed younger than at other brokerage firms. The broker’s no-cost model may even appeal to lively traders. Specifically, Webull’s free options trading will be a focus for lively options traders because other brokers, even people who have gone to free stock and ETF trades like Schwab, proceed to charge commission on each leg of options trades.  

Introduction

Webull, a Chinese-owned company with headquarters in Recent York and operations recently expanding to Hong Kong and Singapore, is a comparatively recent online broker that formed in only 2017. This mobile-first launch in May of 2018 was reflective of Webull’s most vital goal market: millennials. Webull is positioning itself to serve newer and more lively traders, and others drawn to a platform offering a broad range of services at no cost, including no account minimums, commission-free trading of stocks/ETFs and their options, and multiple cryptocurrencies. Webull does skew towards the self-directed investor, with a less comprehensive offering than full service competitors. That said, Webull customers get quite a lot of bang without the buck: a pleasant platform with a big selection of helpful tools and features, together with competitive margin rates. We’ll take an in-depth take a look at Webull to assist you resolve whether it is the suitable broker in your portfolio needs.

Pros & Cons

Pros Explained 

• No commissions on stocks/ETFs, options, or cryptocurrencies: Everyone wants something at no cost, and that is strictly what Webull delivers. No commission stock, ETF, option, and cryptocurrency trading is especially appealing to traders that do not need their hands held. Lower implementation costs makes it easier for traders to profit off a trading strategy.
• Easy account setup and options approval, and no fees or minimums: The account opening process only takes just a few minutes. You’ll receive account and options trading approval in a short time and it only takes a few additional minutes so as to add your checking account and arrange a free ACH transfer. Once the transfer is about up, you’ll be able to receive buying power on the account despite the fact that the fund transfer will not be complete for just a few days. 
• Free real-time streaming quotes: Webull offers free real-time streaming quotes, and a free one-month subscription to Level 2 Advance quotes. The service is Nasdaq TotalView, and it provides a greater depth of bids and asks on a security in addition to information showing market depth. There’s also auction crossing information for all NASDAQ-NYSE and regional listed stocks on NASDAQ Market Center.
• Fractional shares now available: Webull added fractional shares to its lineup within the last 12 months. This permits investors to buy a portion of a share based on the dollars they’ve to speculate.
• Access to prolonged hours and pre-market trading: Many lively traders prefer to trade the market within the pre and/or prolonged hour trading periods, and Webull customers have the flexibility to access these hours. Traders can select whether or not they want their orders lively throughout the non-regular trading day times.

Cons Explained 

• No income on excess money: Webull customers receive no interest on money balances of their account. As Webull doesn’t support mutual fund trading, customers cannot proactively invest their unused money in a money market fund. This will not be an excessive amount of of a problem in today’s ultra-low short term rate of interest environment, however the lost opportunity for generating interest on excess money is likely to be more noticeable if rates move higher.
• Potential surrender on execution attributable to payment for order flow (PFOF): Webull is capable of offer free trading and all its other services since it is receiving payment for order flow (PFOF). This fact may reduce Webull’s price execution quality. The speed and precision that orders are generally filled at today somewhat lessens this as a major issue for many traders, but day traders and people using other strategies highly depending on execution quality could also be at an obstacle.
• Limited range of tools for portfolio management: While Webull provides quite a lot of helpful tools for traders on its platform, the portfolio management tools are lacking. Webull customers are expected to be self-sufficient in making their very own investing/trading decisions. There aren’t any every day or intra-day market letters, and no research or analyst reports on stocks outside of aggregated analyst statistics. Webull doesn’t offer financial advisors, really helpful portfolios for rebalancing, control of tax lots on sales, or offer a dividend reinvestment program (DRIP).
• No access to fixed income, mutual funds, foreign exchange, or futures markets: Stocks, ETFs, options and cryptocurrencies make up the complete menu at Webull. There aren’t any fixed income investments, mutual funds, international equities, futures, or foreign exchange offerings at Webull. What you see is what you get. 

Usability

Webull is straightforward to make use of, with clean and intuitive navigation. Webull has a web site, a desktop workstation, and a mobile app which are all similarly well designed. The platforms share a contemporary feel and appear because of getting been built so recently. 

The desktop workstation and website are nearly similar, with the identical menu and window setup that focuses on a primary set of buttons down the left side of the screen. These buttons launch customizable quote boards, a stock page with a wealth of data on a single stock or ETF, a broad market overview page, a stock screener, a trading screen that is extremely customizable on the desktop platform, an account tab showing balances, positions, buying power, performance, risk level related to margin leverage, access to bank transfers into and out of the account, and a dedicated paper trading area. There are some minor differences between the web site and the workstation, and the web site only supports single leg options. 

The mobile app uses primary features in a way consistent with the web site and workstation, but there are design differences to handle the smaller screens the app is used on. The menu buttons on the underside of the app screen change to be relevant to the content shown on the time. For instance, an options button appears as a alternative at the underside of the stock screen showing a person stock/ETF.

Watchlists will be easily created across all platforms directly from stock screener results. Watchlists also remain consistent between the desktop, web, mobile app, so that you needn’t set these up on multiple platforms. Order entry is easy, and traders may even customize trading ticket information corresponding to order type and share amounts they mostly use.

Trade Experience

Webull’s workstation is extremely customizable, with templates available for trading stocks and ETFs, options trading, day trading, and for cryptocurrency trading. Traders can switch between these different template pages, and may construct their very own page layouts from scratch through widgets. The widgets contain different information, corresponding to news, fundamentals, options, in addition to order entry, time & sales, and so forth. The widgets will be combined to save lots of screen space, with different widgets accessible through marked tabs at the highest of the window. Widget windows can be grouped together so a stock entered in considered one of the widgets will mechanically update in the opposite widgets within the group. 

The trading setup also allows for a highly customized user experience, including hot keys, home page loaded on startup, default stock and option orders, and regularly used share quantities. Probably the most flexibility and customization is offered on the workstation. The web site didn’t have the entire trading page templates available on the workstation, and the training center was not accessible from the web site. The system will guide you to different pages when appropriate, corresponding to taking you to the stocks window to see stock-specific information, news, options, charting, and an analyst rankings overview. It is usually necessary to notice that the web site only supports single leg options trading.

It is straightforward to enter an order through Webull. The order screen will be added to different screens, and the stock order entry screen includes contingency orders for stop loss and/or profit taking levels. You may as well create order tickets directly from the account holdings, and clicking on the bid or offer of a market will mechanically enter that information into the trade order widget. Trading was also available directly from the charting program, with lively positions and orders clearly shown on the chart.

Mobile Trade Experience

On May 23, 2022, the corporate announced the discharge of Webull 8.0. This latest version of the mobile platform provides more educational and customizable content for traders, including updated charting tools, alerts settings, options trading, and financial reporting features. The mobile app has the identical basic features as the web site and workstation, but there are design differences to handle the smaller screens. Menu buttons adapt together with the content screen you might be on, serving up the fundamental functions that you just are more likely to need. Mobile’s charting also shows open positions and allows trading directly from the chart. Webull’s drawing tools were also easier to make use of than the mobile charting software of many other brokers. The mobile app doesn’t allow access to Webull’s stock screener, but you’ll be able to convert search results done on the web site or workstation right into a watchlist that may sync to the mobile app.

Range of Offerings

Webull focuses on U.S. Stock and ETF trading, and U.S. listed options and offers only personal and IRA accounts in the USA. Webull’s product offerings will not be a match for the breadth of offerings available at full service brokers, but it surely meets the needs of its younger customer base less all for fixed income. Unlike lots of the full service brokers, Webull offers trading in multiple cryptocurrencies for as little as $1. As well as, the corporate currently has a cryptocurrency wallet in beta testing. There isn’t any fixed income, mutual fund, futures, or traditional foreign exchange trading available. That said, Webull has added each fractional shares and OTC stocks within the last 12 months, so the lineup continues to grow. Investors using Webull can trade the next:

• US listed Stocks/ETFs long and short (2,085 stocks are currently on Webull’s easy to borrow list for brief sales) 
• American depositary receipts (ADRs)
• US Listed Options on stocks and ETFs
• Over-the-counter (OTC) securities (100 plus)
• Cryptocurrency trading in Bitcoin, Dodgecoin, Bitcoin Money, Ethereum, Litecoin, ZEC, XLM, Shiba Inu, Chiliz, Synthetix, Gala and more.

Order Types

Webull offers essentially the most commonly used order types, including market, limit, stop, stop limit, and trailing stops. There are also specialty orders corresponding to one-cancel-the-other (OCO), one-triggers-an-OCO (OTOCO), and one-triggers-the-other (OTO), allowing traders to setup a conditional order where a filled limit order establishes an OCO attaching each a stop loss and a profit taking level order once the initial position is established. Webull doesn’t offer market-if-touched, market-on-close, or similar orders. 

Webull doesn’t offer traders control over tax lots on sales to shut an extended stock position; it uses the primary in, first out (FIFO) methodology. Webull also lacks automated trading, backtesting of strategies, and the flexibility to stage orders.

Trading Technology

Webull’s trading technology is basic, even though it does get the job done. Webull reports net price improvement of 0.0067 a share on a 100-499 order size with an execution speed of 0.015 seconds. Based on essentially the most recent data, 99% of shares are at or higher than the National Best Bid and Offer (NBBO). There isn’t any smart order routing, no trading automation, no backtesting capabilities, and no method to route your individual orders. That said, that is in step with the broker’s bare bones approach to maintain costs down.

Costs

Webull is a no cost broker, not a low price broker. The corporate offers commission-free trading in stocks, ETFs, and listed options, and it doesn’t charge a fee for account minimums or for its robust platforms and tools. Webull’s margin rates are also competitive. After we speak about commission-free trading, meaning Webull doesn’t charge for trades, but it surely does go through Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) transaction fees and various exchange and regulatory fees, that are typically pennies or fractional pennies per contract. Webull’s costs are as follows:

• No commissions for online trades in equities, ETFs, or OTCBB trades
• No commissions on exchange traded options
• No commission on cryptocurrency trading
• Margin is offered for each leverage and short sales, and margin rates are based on account size. By breakpoint: 9.49% under $25,000; 8.99% as much as $100,000; 8.49% as much as $250K; 7.99% as much as $500K; 6.99% as much as $1 million; 6.49% as much as $3 million; and 5.49% thereafter.
• Money transfers: No charge for ACH Deposits and withdrawals; Wire Transfers are $8 for deposits within the US and $12.5 if international, and $25 for withdrawals within the US and $40 if international
• Charges for paper statements: confirmations are $2 for every confirm, account statements are $5 a press release; and the prospectus fee is $2.5 per mailing

How This Broker Makes Money From You and for You

With the race towards no commission trading, understanding how brokerage firms generate revenue has develop into more opaque. Webull is unabashed in telling investors how they earn money that enables them to supply a classy platform and 0 fee trading.

• Payment From Order Flow: Webull is clearly all-in on the continuing race towards commission-free trading – even options are free to trade on Webull now – and the corporate may be very transparent in stating at the highest of its pricing page that PFOF is the first reason it may offer no-commission trading and no fees for access to its well-built platforms. Webull receives a median of $0.01088 per share for its order flow, and a median of $0.55 per options contract over the period we analyzed. The choices figure is average, however the stock one is, as expected, among the many top for all brokers reviewed.
• Interest on Money: One other necessary revenue stream for Webull is its ability to generate income from money in its traders’ accounts, as the corporate doesn’t pay interest on money balances. When you have got money in your account, the interest generated by Webull is kept by Webull.
• Stock Lending Program: Webull does offer a stock lending program, sharing the revenue generated with the investor lending the securities. The interest paid through the lending program depends entirely available on the market demand in your securities. 

Account and Research Amenities

Webull offers a broad array of account information and research amenities, including fundamental data, news, and charting to assist traders make informed investment decisions and discover stocks to trade. Nevertheless, Webull doesn’t provide the kinds of tools and knowledge available at full-service brokers, corresponding to every day market reports or individual analyst reports or in-depth portfolio evaluation tools.

Stock Screener

Webull has a stock screener, available on the workstation and website but not the mobile app. The screener is proscribed to stocks and is straightforward enough to make use of, but it surely doesn’t offer all of the functionality that rival broker screeners offer. You’ll be able to select from the USA, China, and Canada only; Webull provides data and charting for US, Honk Kong, Canada, China, and India markets, but it surely appears U.S. account holders are limited to trading in U.S. markets. For the U.S., you’ll be able to select the exchanges to incorporate (NYSE, AMEX, NASDAQ), and may filter by greater than 25 industry sectors, financial information corresponding to EPS, P/E, Dividends, and by nine pre-set technical indicators including overbought/oversold and moving average crosses. 

The technical indicators are easy to make use of, but somewhat limited. We were unable to screen for stocks above their 200-period moving average. Other filters available include a consensus analyst rating with five grades (strong buy, buy, hold, underperform, sell) and if the stock will be traded on margin. Stocks cannot be screened for socially responsible investing (SRI). You’ll be able to save a customized search and convert it to a watchlist. Selecting any of the stocks on the search results provides key statistics and financial information and an order window for that stock on the identical page.

ETF and Mutual Fund Screener

Webull doesn’t offer an ETF screener, and it don’t offer mutual funds on its platform in any respect.

Options Screener

Webull doesn’t have a screener to discover specific option trade opportunities, but it surely does have tools to assist construct essentially the most common one, two, and 4 leg option strategies (vertical spreads, straddles/strangles, butterflies/condors, etc.) using a drop-down menu on the choice chain table to pick the strategy. You’ll be able to then bring up the payout graph at maturity for the strategy, and use tools to further customize the strategy through different order types or adjusting the width between strike prices in multi-leg strategies.

Fixed Income Screener

Webull doesn’t offer fixed income on its platform.

Charting

Webull built its own charting functionality, and it’s a solid offering. Mobile app charting is a bit different than on the net and workstation due to smaller screen size, but it is rather intuitive. Order tickets and alerts will be created directly from charts, and evaluation like Bollinger Bands®, easy and exponential moving averages (SMA/EMA), relative strength index (RSI), average trading range (ATR), multiple stochastics variations, and other commonly used evaluation will be easily added to a chart. As well as, the corporate recently added more granularity to the charting capabilities, with charting intervals of 1, 5 and 30 seconds now available. It seems odd, though, that neither the 50, 100, or 200-period MA was included within the set of six defaults in this system. 

Charting on each platforms boast a magnet feature that makes it easy to place trend lines at the precise high or low for a selected date. Charts show open orders and value basis information if applicable, and the mobile app charting also has a helpful set of buttons to indicate the trader if the stock is marginable or shortable, with the corresponding leverage multipliers. Webull’s charting tool should work well for the vast majority of traders who utilize charts to complement investment/trading decisions and help determine their trade timing, in addition to entry and exit points.

Those in search of customizable program trading, pattern recognition, more sophisticated market evaluation and charting techniques would likely use different software, but these traders should know that Webull doesn’t currently provide an API to let third-party charting programs access its price data.

Tools and Calculators

Webull doesn’t offer financial calculators or related tools, in contrast to the robust suite found at full-service brokers. There isn’t any in-depth portfolio evaluation, no automated rebalancing, and none of the final portfolio management tools standard on the larger online brokers.

Trading Idea Generators

Webull doesn’t offer an automatic idea generator, although there are several stock breakdown lists to see things like most lively, biggest movers, an earnings calendar, heat maps, and sector/industry breakdowns to discover opportunities.

News

The news provided free to all clients is the Benzinga Newswire, which works as a basic scrolling window with headline news and business stories, and knowledge on economic releases. Stories will be pulled up by clicking on the news line of interest. The news screen shall be specific to the stock chosen for evaluation inside the stocks tab.

Third-Party Research

Webull doesn’t offer third-party research, but it surely does offer a breakdown of rankings from multiple analyst rankings in a really clean and simple to make use of graphics. 

Fractional Dividend Reinvestment Plan (DRIP)

Webull doesn’t currently have a dividend reinvestment plan, even though it has added fractional share capabilities. The corporate states that this will likely be added in the long run.

Money Management

There isn’t any money management related to trader accounts at Webull. Foregoing interest on money balances is a concession Webull takes in an effort to offer a free platform and no commission trading.

SRI/ESG Research Amenities

Webull doesn’t offer the flexibility to screen or search stocks or ETFs for socially responsible investing (SRI) or environmental, social, and governance (ESG) aspects.

Portfolio Evaluation

Webull doesn’t offer a broad suite of portfolio evaluation tools, but it surely does provide what most self-directed investors need. This includes account performance metrics on the account page in addition to the flexibility to download tax forms, account statements, and confirmations through the net or desktop platforms. The reports and knowledge available are all in real-time, and include realized/unrealized gains/losses, gains/losses net of deposits and withdrawals, income from dividends and interest, unrealized long-term and short-term capital gains, and the interior rate of return (IRR) in addition to information on margin and buying power.

Education

Webull’s Learning Center doesn’t provide investor education about portfolio management and trading, so Webull traders are just about on their very own on the subject of learning easy methods to manage an account and trade. As a substitute, Webull provides a series of instructional material, primarily using text and screenshots, on easy methods to use Webull’s platforms and features. There are sections that introduce workstation, cover regularly used features, show easy methods to customize layouts, and highlight the trading tools available.

While traders can review their order history, Webull doesn’t offer a dedicated trading journal. It is usually no surprise that a free platform at a zero commission broker doesn’t offer sophisticated back testing of strategies. While Webull offers a paper trading feature to assist familiarize traders with easy methods to place orders and trade, the features are very limited. Unlike trading on the actual platform, for instance, you’ll be able to’t enter a limit order with conditional stop loss and profit taking orders. Moreover, there is no such thing as a options trading available through Webull’s paper trading. For this reason, you might not have the ability to simulate what you’ll actually be doing available in the market. That said, the paper trading feature fulfills its purpose of getting a brand new trader comfortable with the platform and the fundamentals of order entry.

Customer Service

Webull’s narrow give attention to younger, tech-savvy, self-directed customers primarily all for the no-cost opportunity for trading ends in a sparse customer support offering. Webull doesn’t have financial advisors, but its customers can speak with a live broker in the event that they are willing to attend on the phone – Webull’s average hold time is greater than two hours.

• Phone available during trading hours only. 
• Online chat with a live agent during business hours.

Security and Reliability

• Two-factor authentication is offered on all platforms. 
• Mobile offers biometric logon as an option by fingerprint or facial recognition.
• There’s a separate six digit numerical passcode for trading access, adding a further layer of protection. 
• Webull didn’t have any serious platform outages
• Webull has not had a knowledge breach.
• Webull goes beyond the Securities Investor Protection Corporation (SIPC) protection of $500 thousand ($250 thousand of money) by having purchased a further insurance policy providing an aggregate amount of $150 million of protection, with maximum limits per individual of $37.5 million ($900 million in money) for losses suffered unrelated to account losses related to value of securities.

Transparency

Webull’s pricing may be very straight-forward and fully disclosed. The corporate is totally open within the second paragraph of its pricing page, accompanied with a link to its SEC rule 606 disclosure, that payment for order flow (PFOF) is the first generator of revenue allowing users on its platform to trade commission free. Other fees are listed clearly on the web site’s well marked pricing page. Webull explains the way it passes through SEC, exchange, and regulatory fees which are typically fractions of a penny per volume traded.

Webull’s tiered margin rates and associated buying power are clearly displayed on the pricing page, but it surely was not as easy to search out disclosures related to the risks of margin trading on the web site. Webull does, nonetheless, provide a helpful account risk measure that visually informs a trader in the event that they are at greater risk for a margin call.

Webull has taken an interesting approach with its honesty about payment for order flow being key to its free business model. Unlike another brokers which have buried it within the wonderful print, the corporate is actually telling clients upfront that they’ll have a free platform or no payment for order flow, but not each.

Available Account Types

Webull offers a money and margin account for people, each taxable. The difference between these accounts is that the money account is solely money transactions, meaning you have got to place money into the account after which purchase the assets. The margin account is offered just once your account value is at or above $2000, and allows so that you can borrow against your portfolio to purchase more assets. Beyond the 2 individual taxable accounts, Webull also supports:

Final Verdict 

Webull is an awesome deal for the trader or lively investor that doesn’t need hand holding. There isn’t any minimum account size, the margin rates are competitive, there are zero commissions on stocks, ETFs, options, and cryptocurrencies. Furthermore, you get access to well-designed and intuitive trading platforms for the desktop and mobile devices providing helpful trading tools at no extra cost. While full service brokerage firms like Charles Schwab also offer commission-free trading in stocks and ETFs now, their $0.65 commission per option contract and better margin rates makes Webull an appealing alternative for margin users and lively option traders who may otherwise find Webull’s options trading tools somewhat lacking (but still functional).

With technology providing acceptable fills on limit and other order types, most traders shall be satisfied with Webull. That said, NASDAQ Level 2 quotes won’t be enough to entice serious day traders who want the most effective price execution or full control over how their orders are routed. Investors in search of a full service broker with financial planning services and tools may have to look elsewhere, as will traders with strategies that rely heavily on execution speed and quality. Webull is for the self-directed trader who wants to maintain costs down as much as possible.

Should I Worry About Webull’s Payment for Order Flow?

While we are usually not fans of payment for order flow, it’s a standard industry practice. Fidelity stands out as the most important broker to refuse this easy revenue stream, but we also take a look at how a brokerage discloses their payment for order flow practices. Webull may be very upfront about the way it makes money and the role payment for order flow plays in its revenue and skill to operate as a zero commission brokerage. Webull also is not gamifying its platform to encourage overtrading, which steers it clear of some controversy that one other PFOF dependent broker has run into. As as to whether the PFOF at a selected broker should worry you, it will depend on your view on the matter and whether the platform provided is definitely worth the subtle price.

Which is Higher, Webull or Robinhood?

Webull and Robinhood are each targeting newer investors in search of low costs and solid mobile trading in key assets. There are, nonetheless, some differences between the approach of those two brokers. For one, Webull has a small cryptocurrency mark up in comparison with Robinhood, but it surely is built into the pricing if you end up trading. Robinhood states that any trading slippage is the market and there is no such thing as a markup. Furthermore, Robinhood has rolled a crypto wallet feature, while Webull’s wallet remains to be in beta testing. Beyond this discrepancy in crypto costs and capabilities, Webull’s trading and analytical tools are more robust than those found on Robinhood. When you are going to trade relatively than simply buy and hold with either of those apps, then Webull provides you a greater platform to do this intelligently with the support of feature-rich charting and other trading-focused enhancements. Specifically, Webull’s paper trading feature means that you can test out recent strategies and assets without putting your money in danger.