While I don’t actively trade day in and day out, I still like to follow the stock market each and every day. I also keep tabs on several stocks I’m interested in investing into if the price gets to my interested entry point. So, I always keep my eyes and ears open for new trading tools which can help me to improve my trading/investing. Enter Webull. Check out this full length Webull review of the desktop and mobile trading platform.
Why Webull?
I think first and foremost when conducting a review of a new trading platform we need to ask ourselves: do we really need another one of these? There are dozens of stock market trading platforms out there, so what make Webull so special? Well, there’s a couple of things I’d like to point out that sets Webull above the competition:
- You get real-time market data pumped to your PC/Mac/Mobile for free.
- There’s no minimum for opening a new account.
- Trades are $0! You heard that right – $0!!!
As you’ll understand while going through this article, Webull offers a tremendous amount of value to many traders at zero cost. So, what’s the catch?
You actually do end up paying $0.02 per trade just due to SEC and FINRA trading fees, but we are still basically free. Webull really makes its money from three areas:
- Interest on margin leverage on money borrowed (for margin accounts you need $2,000 or more to begin trading on margin).
- With this, you are only paying margin interest if you 4x short sale or use 2x overnight buying power.
- Enhanced data supplied for more rare markets.
- On order flows.
For 95% of us though, trading through Webull is basically 99.99% free. No catch!
What’s more, if you start a Webull account and fund it with $100 or more, you’ll get a free stocks valued from $8 up to $1,000 in value!
So what are you waiting for, sign-up now here!
Download, Install, and Setup
The download size of the PC version (as of June 2019) is ~70mb. The mobile version clocks in at about 58mb. This is a decently compact size on mobile – I always seem to be running out of space on my phone so I was pleasantly surprised. I also assumed the PC version would be much larger. I’m honestly quite surprised that the file size was so small for all the features available in the program.=
Install on the PC was a piece of cake – no real issues at all. It just installed and started right up. Mobile was similar – no issues or concerns to report.
Webull lets you perform a large amount of functions in the app without even registering an account. This was useful to poke around a bit. But, you’ll eventually want to register your account to enable the full functionality of the program. You can register with an email address or your mobile phone #. It’s pretty simple.
Watchlists
When you first start Webull, you are greeted with the “watchlists” section. This is a compact little section which shows you several indexes by default plus I think AAPL. From there, you can easily add/modify/delete stocks in which you’re interested in following.
As you can see, there are a ton of criteria you can specify to display on your wishlist which you can then use to sort. It’s really quite nice!
From there, you can quickly switch from the list to a 4, 9, or 16 chart grid to jump right into trading. I really like this feature as it can help you see if there’s a trading opportunity right away based on you charting analysis skills.
Another cool thing I noticed is that the mobile and desktop watchlists are synced. So you can work on either device and ensure you’ve got the same list with you in both spots.
Webull Watchlists
Stock Charting
Stock charting is actually my favorite part of Webull. It is very good on mobile, but it is absolutely amazing on the desktop version. After TDAmeritrade discontinued Prophet charts, I felt as if a piece of me was missing. I really used this great charting plugin along with my charting skills to pickup good stocks and great prices.
Well, dare I say that Webull charting is just as good if not better! It is super fast, has functionality for all kinds of drawing tools, has all sorts of built in indicators, and even allows for detachable windows. Plus it is lightning fast!
It is seriously very good – I actually started playing around with various charts while I was working on this article and realized two hours later that I needed to get back to work! I cannot believe Webull is giving all this away for free, but they are :-).
The mobile version of the charting is also extremely impressive. I didn’t know I was missing all this functionality on mobile, but now I cannot live without it. I have not tried another mobile trading platform which has better charting.
Anyhow, if you are a charting enthusiast like me, then you owe it to yourself to try out Webull. Go ahead and sign-up now for Webull through my link and you’ll get a free stock valued from $8 up to $1,000 if you fund your account with $100 or more!!
Webull Charting
Webull Charting
Markets
The “markets” section of the Webull mobile app is like an overview sort of command center. Here you can see which stocks or markets are making big moves. This is very helpful for day trading as you can ride the wave, or decide to catch the knife. It gives a good overview of net inflows and outflows by overall index or industry.
The cool thing here is that you can double click on a most active stock, jump right into the charting section, then issue a trade in the sidebar all in the matter of 3 or 4 seconds. It is really quite impressive that everything is so well interconnected.
The “markets” section also presents upcoming IPOs, Earnings, and Dividends under the “Alert Center”. There’s also a “news” section which pumps in important news info every couple of seconds.
Webull Markets
Screeners
The “screeners” sections of Webull is decent, but I think it’s the area where they can really improve the program for the future. There are a couple of default screeners setup just to that you can see how they work, and from there you can jump in to define your own.
The desktop version of the Webull application has a quick shortcut to jump right into screens – this was much appreciated. For the mobile version, I had a time finding how to get to the “screeners” section. Hint – it’s actually under the watchlist section, then add symbol…..
The other odd thing about the screeners if for dividend yield, I would think one would normally want 3% or higher, or 5% or higher as choices. But, they give you 2%-3% or 3%-4% or 4% – 5%, and you get the idea. Why not have > than X%? I could be missing find a stock because it has a 4.2% dividend instead of a 3.9% dividend if I don’t choose carefully.
The good news with screeners is that the filter is super fast. So, you can click through hundreds of stocks almost instantly. This is nice – some stock screeners can take ages to process your choices and display a list of potential investments/trades.
This is one area I hope Webull focuses on a bit in the future. Although, for most traders I would suspect they’re more interested in following the hot stock of the day and not so much in screeners which caters a bit more to long-term investors.
Trading & Paper Trading
As mentioned throughout this review, trades are basically $0 (they are actually $0.02 due to SEC fees and FINRA fees). There is a full set of trade types such as market, limit, stop, and stop limit with a little “helper” text to describe what each one does. You also have simple Time-in-Force choices of a day order or a good-till-canceled order.
A cool feature that Webull includes with all registered accounts is papertrading. This is where you can practice trading stocks and securities to hone your day-trading skills. I spent a bit of time with this, and it is quite fun. Webull has monthly trading contests just to spice things up a bit, but don’t expect to strike it rich if you win first place. There’s a monthly max of $300 one can win in the contest, but it seems like there is a lot of competition.
The papertrading section start you out with one million dollars, and you can trade any stock with that. If you make a couple bad choices, that’s OK. You can just reset your total back up to one million. If only real life was that simple! You can see here in the example below I’m having fun day trading some TSLA and having a bit of success.
Webull Paper Trading
Social
One cool feature I didn’t expect from the mobile version of the trading platform is its social and commenting functionality. For each stock, if you click on the trading symbol from the watchlist, screener or other area, you get taken to the stock detail page. From here you see detailed information about inflows, outflows, and all sorts of other technical info. The surprising thing for me though is that you can comment and discuss each stock with other Webull users. This is a neat feature that seems like it could be much fun. It’s always great to discuss a stock that’s riding high or one that’s down in the dumps with other users! I hope the stock trading desktop app (https://www.webull.com/) adds in this social functionality eventually.
Future Features
I cannot include too much here in this review pertaining to future features because they obviously are not out yet. However, I am told that a major upcoming feature for Webull is options trading. One main competitor of Webull is Robinhood. The main benefit Robinhood has versus Webull is the ability to trade options. Once Webull gets this in place, I think it will be superior to Robinhood in just about every area. So, this is something I’m definitely watching closely.
Webull Video Review
If this article is too long for you – that’s OK. Check out my detailed video review here below!
Final Thoughts
To wrap this review up of the Webull free trading platform, I think it’s something you should give a try if you actively invest or trade stocks. If all you do is value invest each month through dollar cost averaging in stock market index funds, then you may not be too interested in Webull. But, if you like to more actively trade or are interested in charting and indicators, then Webull will be right up your alley! The Webull trading platform is compact, quick, and very sleek. The UI is intuitive for the most part, and the flow from research to charting to trading is top notch. It is definitely a polished piece of software!
As always, please do NOT trade with money you cannot afford to lose. You should only be investing if you have an emergency fund already setup and you can afford to lose the money you are trading with. Please trade responsibly!
If you have extra money to invest or trade with, then what are you waiting for? Give the Webull free trading platform a try now! If you decide to fund your account with $100 or more and use Webull to trade, you’ll get a free stock worth anywhere from $8 – $1,000 with this link. Good luck!
