Capital One Investing Review 2020

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Capital One Investing is a low-fee, full-service broker that caters to beginner investors as well as those who want to put their investing on auto-pilot by setting up a regular automatic investing plan. With no account minimum required to open an account, Capital One Investing makes it easy to get started and provides free and extensive research to customers along the way.

Capital One Investing has an impressive suite of tools but experienced investors and day traders may find the trading platform comes up shy compared to the powerful screeners and tools offered by established trading platforms, such as thinkorswim. A tool that makes it easy for most investors to get started allocating capital to a diversified portfolio of exchange-traded funds and mutual funds is the Capital One Investing Portfolio Builder. For one low-cost, it is easy to get exposure to a broad range of asset classes for a fixed dollar amount that ensures no cash is left idle in your account.

Capital One Investing Spotlight

CAPITAL ONE INVESTING SPOTLIGHT
capital one investing logo

InvestorMint Rating

3.5 out of 5 stars

  • Promo: Up to $600 for new accounts
  • Account Balance Minimum: $0
  • Commissions: $6.95 for stocks

Capital One Investing Customers

Capital One Investing serves beginner investors who want a simple, well-organized, highly navigable site that allows for low-cost trading and automatic investing.

Capital One Investing targets beginner investors who are fee-savvy and looking to simplify their investing experience. With its easy website navigation, Portfolio Builder tool and automatic investing plan feature, Capital One Investing makes it a breeze to get started investing.

The Portfolio Builder tool makes it easy for investors to allocate money to a diversified portfolio of exchange-traded funds, which tend to have lower expense ratios compared to mutual funds. For just $18.95, the tool will build a portfolio of exchange-traded funds for you automatically. The cost works out to be a good deal compared to investing individually in each exchange-traded fund. A nice feature of the Portfolio Builder tool is that you get to choose a dollar amount to invest and purchase partial shares if necessary so you don’t have to worry about unused cash sitting idle in your account.

Capital One Investing is best for:

  • Beginner investors
  • Hands-off investors
  • Existing Capital One customers
  • Fee-savvy customers

Capital One Investing Promo Deal

Capital One Investing offers a tiered promotional structure up to $600 for deposits of $200,000 or more.

  • $50 bonus for deposits of $5,000+
  • $100 bonus for deposits of $15,000+
  • $200 bonus for deposits of $50,000+
  • $300 bonus for deposits of $100,000+
  • $600 bonus for deposits of $200,000+


➤ Free Guide: 5 Ways To Automate Your Retirement


Capital One Investing Pros and Cons

Capital One Investing has no account balance minimum, no inactivity fees, low commissions for stock and option trades, a range of no-transaction fee mutual funds, extensive research and tools, plus an easy way to invest automatically. A drawback is the lack of no-commission free ETFs.

Capital One Investing ProsCapital One Investing Cons
Low Commissions: Capital One Investing offers flat rate stock trades for just $6.95, which compares favorably to full-service brokers but runs a little higher than discount brokers, such as TradeKing. Options trades are just $6.95 plus $0.75 per contract, which is quite competitive, but tastyworks competes a bit better on options commissions costs.No Commission-free ETFs: As brokers compete for business, commission-free ETFs are increasingly an enticement offered to customers. For example, Fidelity offers 90+ commission-free exchange-traded funds. However, the Portfolio Builder tool does make it possible to transact ETFs at lower cost but does not support commission-free exchange-traded funds.
Low Fees & Minimums: A positive in favor of Capital One Investing is its low-fees, such as no inactivity fees and just $19.95 for broker-assisted trades. Plus, no account balance minimum is mandated when opening an account.Few No-Transaction Fee Mutual Funds: Industry heavyweights like Fidelity offer over 4,000 no-transaction fee mutual funds whereas Capital One Investing offers almost 500, which is good but far from best in class.
Tools, Screeners and Analyzers: Stocks, mutual funds, and exchange-traded funds can all be screened easily at Capital One Investing. The What If I Had Invested tool allows you to simulate investment decisions over time to compare how your portfolio would have changed based on different entry criteria. It’s easy to create watchlists, customize stock charts, and create alerts.No Web-Based Platform: Experienced investors will be used to their brokers offering web-based and desktop trading platforms, as well as mobile solutions but Capital One Investing comes up short by forcing customers to place trades through the Capital One Investing website. With that said, the interface is highly navigable though and a mobile app is provided.
Invest Automatically: It is simple at Capital One Investing to set up an automatic plan to contribute regular amounts to stocks and ETFs. For just $3,95, you can choose the frequency to be weekly, every two weeks or every month.
Portfolio Builder: The Portfolio Builder tool allows you to invest in a diversified portfolio of exchange-traded funds for a lower cost than would be possible on an individual basis. For $18.95, a portfolio of up to 8 exchange-traded funds is built on your behalf and includes partial share purchases so cash is not sitting in your account uninvested and idle.
Research: Among the research options available to stock and mutual fund investors is to compare equities and funds using Morningstar ratings.

Capital One Investing Securities

Capital One Investing supports stocks, options, ETFs, mutual funds and bonds funds but investors looking for Forex or futures should consider other alternatives, such as Interactive Brokers or Charles Schwab.

  • Stocks
  • Mutual Funds
  • Bond Funds
  • ETFs
  • Options

Capital One Investing Fees

Capital One Investing has no account balance minimum requirement, a broad range of no-transaction fee mutual funds, and low commissions costs for stock and options trades.

SecurityFees
Stocks$6.95
Automatic Investing Plans
(Sharebuilder Plan)
$3.95
Options$6.95 + $0.75 per contract
Mutual Funds$19.95
(400+ no-fee funds)
Account Balance Minimum$0
Margin Rates5.20% – 8.20%
Inactivity Fees$0
Transfer Out Fees$75

Capital One Investing Platform Features

TypeCapability
DesktopYES
Web-basedNO
MobileYES
Automatic Investing PlanYES
ScreenersYES
Back-testingYES
Customer supportPhone Support Mon-Fri 8am-9pm
Email
Live Chat
ResearchYES
Chart ToolsYES
No-transaction-fee Mutual FundsYES

Capital One Investing Account Types

TypeCapability
Individual CashYES
Individual MarginYES
Joint Cash/MarginYES
Traditional IRAYES
Roth IRAYES
Custodial AccountYES
Education Savings AccountYES

Capital One Investing Summary

Capital One Investing makes it easy to get started investing with no minimum deposit needed to open an account, low stock and options commissions costs, plus a low-cost automatic investing plan. The site is full of extensive research, such as comparing funds using Morningstar research ratings, and tools that let you back-test investment choices. The Portfolio Builder tool is an especially nice feature that removes the cost and barrier to individual investing, allowing customers to easily construct diversified portfolios of exchange-traded funds.

Experienced investors and active day traders may prefer platforms at thinkorswim or TradeStation which offer more powerful tool suites.


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