investing apps

Review Is Grifin App Legit?

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grifin portfolio

New Grifin news: I just recently got a notice that Grifin will be implementing a $5 monthly fee. I’m going to redo the review below in light of this fee and the new features that Grifin has positioned in an attempt to make it worth it. My first reaction is that $60 per year is too much. — Please read the rest of this review knowing that it was how I felt about everything before the fee was implemented, when there was no user cost. New Grifin review update: It looks like the folks at Grifin are back with new updates. The latest version of Grifin offers app users the ability to change how much to invest for each purchase. This is a big change from Grifin’s core system where every purchase using a Grifin linked credit card triggered a $1 investment in the stock of that same company. This latest version of Grifin lets you select whether to invest the traditional $1 for each purchase, or change it to $2 per purchase, or even $3 per transaction. The other new update is the ability to transfer cash directly into the Grifin app to invest as you please from inside …

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Is Grifin a Good Way to Start Investing

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is grifin good at investing

Important Grifin Update It was always probably a little too good to be true. An app that invests a dollar every time you make a purchase with no fees or user face costs. Everything costs money, especially running an app that accesses credit cards, makes transfers from banks, and then buys and tracks investments in partial shares of stocks. I have no idea what the plan was in the beginning, but I can only imagine it was something like, “We’ll figure out how to monetize it when we’re huge,” or maybe, “We’ll get big enough someone will buy us for a big exit before we run out of venture capital money.” Neither of those worked out, so instead, Grifin will start charging $5 per month. They did their best to sugarcoat it. There are some new features, but none that can justify $60 a year in fees for accounts that have just a few thousand in them. After all, even stock where you shop doesn’t necessarily add up that quickly, as I pointed out here and in my comprehensive Grifin review. From my first investment back in fall of 2021 to now, I’ve built up a nice littel $1,100 or …

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Stash Stock Back Card Review

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stash stock back rewards card

Is Stash Stock Back Card a scam? Is the Stash Stock Back Card safe? Is the whole Stock Cash Back Card legit? We take a look. What Is Stash? Stash is one of many micro-brokers pushing the so-called fintech movement. We should start by asking if Stash is a legitimate company? Stash is backed by numerous well-known investors, and all of its customer accounts are SPIC insured which means even if you still wonder, is stash reputable, you can be assured that your money is safe in separate, insured accounts. Like other mini-brokers, Stash is entirely online and offers customers ways to buy stock without investing a lot of money and with minimal fees. The Stash Stock Back Card is a compliment to the online Stash brokerage service, and other Stash cash back rewards. Let’s get into this Stash Stock-Back review. What Is Stash Stock Back? Stash Stock Back comes from Stash stock rewards, Stash stock back bonus, and the Stash Stock Back Card. In each case, Stash deposits additional money into your Stash account in the form of stock shares and partial stock shares known as fractional stock shares. Alright, these are a lot of terms that all start …

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Acorns Investment Portfolio Review

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acorns investment performance

Recently, I did a review of the Acorns app. If you are not already familiar with the Acorns savings and investing app, you should read that for an introduction how to use Acorns first. It also covers questions like Is Acorns safe, What are Acorns fees, and If Acorns is legit. Essentially everything you would expect in an honest Acorns review. Now, let’s take a look at Acorns funds and how they invest your change. Are Acorns Investments Good Portfolios? The idea of the Acorns automatic money savings app is that it rounds up all of your transactions and automatically invests that money for you. There are some nuances about how Acorns works you should understand first. Money is only transferred once the minimum round-up amount is $5, and it only happens once per day, unless you use the Acorns debit card or Acorns checking account. Before we get too in-depth here, it is important to remember a few things. First, when you get started with Acorns, we are talking about a very small amount of money. That means that as far as real dollar amounts go, the difference in percentages won’t be big. For example, if you have $100 in …

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Stock Buying Opportunities – New on Finance Gourmet

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stock buying opportunities

I’m going to be changing my long-standing policy on Finance Gourmet on not recommending specific investments. Stock buying opportunities require more knowledge than most would-be investors are willing to acquire, but for those willing to learn, there is gold in them thar stock markets. Instead of babying my readers, I’m going to go all out. I think we both can handle it. Investing Recommendations from Finance Gourmet For years, I’ve kept my mouth shut when I see good opportunities for a few reasons. Most people don’t properly understand how and when to invest in individual stocks. — This is still true, but this is my job. I’ll be cranking out investment articles as fast as I can to educate readers how and when buying stocks and other investments is appropriate. (I have sort-of, partially, noted here where I need future investing strategy and knowledge articles to fill in a smart investing opportunity curriculum, but there are many, many more. – I need to get my email list up and running so I can keep you notified when I get them written up. For now, keep checking back.) Until recently the costs associated with buying and selling small amounts of stock …

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Robinhood Becomes Nannyhood

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robinhood becomes a nanny broker

I’m not going to get into the Gamestop thing. There are plenty of other places you can read about it. Finance Gourmet isn’t really about day-trading or riding trends like this. What Finance Gourmet IS about is providing financial information and data to investors. I didn’t even get a chance to finish updating my Robinhood vs Stash vs Acorn post before Robinhood changed its reputation forever. (This is why I chose to just publish the mega post and keep editing it rather than waiting to fill in all the blanks) Robinhood Halts Trades to “Protect” Traders Robinhood today halted BUYS ONLY on several stocks that were being pushed higher by internet-based trading groups. In other words, you are welcome to sell and relieve the price pressure that is hurting hedge funds, but you can’t buy, because Robinhood is protecting you from yourself. Robinhood is the same platform that allowed a trader to rack up millions in debt over dubious trades until he killed himself. It claims to democratize trading by offering trading to the masses, so long as those masses don’t make a mess, apparently. But, this Gamestop thing is making its hedge fund masters uncomfortable, and well… now it …

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Stash vs Acorns vs Robinhood vs Betterment vs Wealthfront

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acorns robinhood stash wealthfront betterment

It is time for a mega-review session where we review Stash versus Acorns versus Robinhood versus Betterment, and Wealthfront. Why these apps? These are current front runners in a crowded space that encourages small investments from regular people as a way to invest rather than the traditional broker models of investing. In a way, this Wealthfront review versus the other money investing apps begs for a new investing apps versus Fidelity, Schwab, ETrade, Ameritrade, ScottTrade review. That will have to wait for another day since I’ve already bitten off more than I can likely chew with an in-depth look at each of the Stash, Acorns, Robinhood, Betterment, Wealthfront apps and financial services. The Quick and Dirty Look (No Fine Print) Is Stash safe? What does Betterment do? Why is Wealthfront better or worse than Acorns? These questions demand an in-depth look at each one, and a thorough review of the fine print. Before that, we can take a look at what each money app and financial service say they do, and how that fits for regular investors. What Is Stash? Stash is why I’m writing this mega-review. People keep asking me about Stash. Then they ask me if Stash is …

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