What is Zacks Trade?
Zacks Trade is an online brokerage platform for active traders. This broker offers really low trading commissions and detailed research. Unlike a lot of other brokers, this broker is available for traders in more than 200 countries. You can trade on 91 exchanges in 19 countries with the help of this broker. Various trading tools are available for enhancing your trading experience and making the right trading decisions.
Zacks Investment Research is a well-known company that focuses on independent equity research. Zacks Investment Research or Zacks was founded more than 40 years ago in the year 1978. Now, Zacks Trade has come into the picture to offer online brokerage services.
Pros
Great Research: Zacks is known for research, so it is not surprising that the research is amazing. You can access 20 free research subscriptions and 80 premium trials. I like the fact that you can try premium options before you decide to buy them.
Low Commissions: You will only be charged $0.01 per share when you buy shares worth more than $1 per share. For penny stocks, you will be charged 1% of the trade value. In both cases, the minimum trade amount should be $3. You should be satisfied with their commissions except for the commissions that they charge for mutual funds.
Exceptional Support: Their support is excellent. They provide support through phone, email, and live chat. They offer complimentary broker-assisted trades, which means that you can get the help of a broker for free.
Cons
Minimum Balance: You are required to have a minimum balance of $2,500 for any type of account that you open with them. I wish that this was lower because they offer an amazing service.
How does Zacks Trade work?
The brokerage offers four different platforms based on your needs. Let us take a look at them.
Zacks Trade Pro: This is their flagship platform that is meant for those who are very serious about trading. You can customize the layout to suit your needs. Data related to account balances, margin, market value, portfolio, and more can be accessed easily.
You can create watchlists and customize the data columns the way that you want. More features, like creating real-time data alerts based on factors such as price, time, margin, etc. are also available.
You will be excited to know that you can use more than 120 technical indicators and customize the charts fully. You can create multiple charts and adjust them within your layout.
There are advanced tools such as Basket Trader for importing baskets of stock orders and executing them or SpreadTrader for creating and managing complex option orders with ease. You can open a free paper trading account with $1 million in paper trading funds. This demo paper trading account can be used for 90 days, which is more than enough time to try it out.
Client Portal: The Client Portal is for managing your account and portfolio as well as easy trading. It allows you to access statements and trade confirmations, fund and withdraw from your account, manage your security settings, modify account trading permissions, add privileges, make trades, and more.
The Client Portal is not focused on trading, but it is nice to have this ability here, as well. Portfolio Analyst inside the Client Portal will allow you to analyze your portfolio performance.
Zacks Trader: Some people prefer a simple interface, but it is hard to find it in online brokerages that serve advanced traders. Fortunately, Zacks Trader is designed for people who prefer a simple interface without compromising on advanced trading features and tools.
You can create orders or advanced orders, view open orders and executions, use interactive charts, view options chains, view news, and do much more through the Zacks Trader.
In simple words, this is like a lite version of the Zacks Trade Pro.
Handy Trader: Handy Trader is for mobile or tablet users. It allows you to perform a lot of actions that you can do on the Zacks Trader. You can view real-time streaming quotes and charts, trade various securities, access company fundamentals data, access trade reports, access account information, and more through the app.
How much does Zacks Trade cost?
Here are the various commissions that they charge for different securities.
Stocks and ETFs: $0.01 per share for shares greater than $1 per share and 1% of the trade value for shares less than $1 per share
Options: $3 for first contract plus $0.75 per additional contract (no options exercise or assignment fees)
Mutual Funds: $12.55
Corporate Bonds: 0.1% of face value plus $3 per bond for up to $10,000 face value and then 0.025% of face value plus $3 per bond for the remaining face value
U.S. Government Bonds: 0.025% of face value plus $3 per bond for up to $1 million face value and then 0.005% of face value plus $3 per bond for the remaining face value
The account minimum is $2,500. You need to maintain $2,000 in your account always if you want to do margin trading.
Who should try Zacks Trade?
This broker is not the dream broker for those who are just getting started. The $2,500 account minimum is surely going to push away a lot of beginners. This platform is for the active traders who sort of know what they are doing. The platform will assist them when the need arises, but a beginner can easily be overwhelmed. I am sure that active traders will appreciate the free broker-assisted trades.
Final Thoughts
Zacks Trade is a great platform for active traders because of its customer service, research, free broker-assisted trades, tools, and low fees. You won’t feel alone, and it is not a secret that experienced traders need help from time to time. Beginners can try this platform if they are feeling a little adventurous, but they need to take their time to understand how it works.