Top Rated For
Best International Trading Platform for Chinese Stocks
Our Take
Moomoo is a newer online trading platform that delivers solid analytical and trading tools with commission-free trading in U.S. stocks, ETFs, and options. Moomoo also provides its customers with access to Chinese A shares and Hong Kong listed stocks. In addition to commission-free trading for these U.S. markets, moomoo also offers competitive margin rates and pays one of the industry’s highest interest rates on uninvested cash balances, making it a viable choice for U.S. stock, ETF, and options traders.
Introduction
Moomoo is owned by Futu Holdings Ltd, a publicly traded company listed on the Nasdaq. Moomoo was founded in 2018 in Palo Alto, California, and also has an office in Jersey City, New Jersey. The company was founded to provide a professional-level trading platform, along with strong analytical tools, to everyday traders. The company offers trading on its platform in U.S. equities, ETFs, options, and index options, and also provides trading access to Hong Kong and Chinese A-List stocks. Moomoo has expanded to provide access to its platform to investors in Canada, Hong Kong, Australia, Malaysia, Japan, and Singapore.
Pros & Cons
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No commissions on U.S. stocks, ETFs, and options
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Strong trading and analytical tools
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Competitive rate on cash balances
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Free level 2 quotes and options chains
Pros Explained
- No commissions on U.S. stocks, ETFs, and options: Moomoo does not charge any commissions for trading U.S. stocks, ETFs, or options. There is a fee, however, on index options trading. While many online brokers have moved to commission-free stock and ETF trading, moomoo is one of the few that also offers commission-free options trading, making it a good option for those looking for a low-cost trading platform.
- Strong trading and analytical tools: Moomoo offers robust platforms with helpful trading tools that can be customized across mobile and desktop platforms.
- Competitive rate on cash balances: Moomoo offers a cash sweep program that pays a competitive 5.1% interest rate. However, only new customers and existing customers utilizing a promotion receive this rate, which is also subject to change at any time. Existing customers can qualify for the higher cash sweep rate by depositing $500 into their account, or by providing a referral that leads to an account opened with at least a $100 balance. The standard cash sweep rate is a paltry 0.03%.
- Free level 2 quotes and options chains: Moomoo provides users with free level 2 quotes and options chains. While many platforms offer option chains, they are not always in real time. Level 2 quotes, which provide users with additional information about trade sizes and market players, are not typically provided by online brokers for free.
Cons Explained
- Limited investment options: The trading vehicles in U.S. markets available at moomoo are U.S. equities, ETFs, options, and index options. Moomoo also provides access to the over-the-counter (OTC) and American depository receipts (ADRs), as well as Hong Kong stocks and China A-List shares.
- Limited account types: An individual margin account is the only option for U.S. investors at moomoo. This means there are no options to open a joint account, a trust account, or any type of retirement account. This is very limited compared to other online brokerage platforms.
- High fees for transferring money out: While some online brokers do not charge any fee for transferring cash or securities out of an account, moomoo has relatively higher fees for this type of service, including a $20 outgoing domestic wire transfer fee, a $25 outgoing international wire transfer fee, and a $75 fee for transferring a stock position out of the account.
Usability
Moomoo is an intuitive and easy-to-use interface, even though its sophistication may require a bit of a learning curve. This is comparable to other platforms, which often require learning to get the most out of them. There are moomoo platforms for mobile and desktop use, and they are well coordinated. For example, changes made to screeners on one platform will be carried over to the other platform. Additionally, opening an account is straightforward, in an entirely electronic process. Moomoo supports both Apple and IBM/Android users with both desktop and mobile versions of its platform.
Trade Experience
The trading experience on moomoo’s platforms is smooth. It is easy to choose the type of trade you want to make and to identify the individual security. The interface can be customized and changes made on one platform are visible on the other platform, so you do not have to make the same configuration more than once.
When trading options, the user can choose the type of strategy using dropdown menus, where they can then customize the trade by selecting the specific strikes and maturities to fit the desired trade characteristics. The desktop version has enhanced charting and supports the ability to create algorithmic trading strategies without the need for extensive computer programming.
Mobile Trade Experience
The mobile app, available for both iOS and Android, is also easy to use and intuitive. The mobile app does a good job replicating the desktop experience on the smaller mobile platform. It is very easy to set up trades, even when the strategies are complex options positions. Charting on the mobile app is more robust than on other apps, and multiple drawing and analysis tools are also available—which is not always the case with mobile charting. You have access to all the same markets on the mobile app, and can use alerts to ensure you can keep track of the market and the specific securities you trade.
Range of Offerings
Moomoo has a limited number of offerings available to customers in the U.S. The markets available to trade are U.S. stocks, ETFs, options, and index options, as well as Hong Kong and China A shares. This is not a wide range of offerings, and investors who might want mutual funds and/or fixed income exposure to their portfolios will likely find the platform lacking for their needs. For more active traders, however, there are plenty of stocks and options to trade with no commissions, other than for index options.
Investopedia’s latest sentiment survey has uncovered that, given the recent reversal in the stock market and renewed concerns about inflation, readers are stepping back from investing in riskier investments, even as they still claim to be “cautiously optimistic.”
Investopedia’s latest sentiment survey has uncovered that, given the recent reversal in the stock market and renewed concerns about inflation, readers are stepping back from investing in riskier investments, even as they still claim to be “cautiously optimistic.”
Trading Technology
Moomoo’s trading technology is good. In addition to its intuitive platforms, moomoo offers a wide range of order types and the ability to easily input orders. In addition to the various order types available, moomoo offers a number of helpful trading technologies.
These technologies include support for fractional share trading, the ability to backtest trading strategies against 20-plus years of data, a trade journal, and paper trading that allows traders to try out their strategies without risking capital. Another feature provided by moomoo, which is not commonly available at online brokers, is free access to level 2 quotes. Trading technologies not present on moomoo, however, include the ability to control tax lots and dividend reinvestments.
Costs
Moomoo does not charge commissions to trade U.S. stocks, ETFs, and stock options. Trading index options entails a $0.50 per contract fee. Even OTC trading is commission-free.
How This Broker Makes Money From You and For You
Moomoo makes money from customers through the difference in its funding rate and the margin rates customers pay, as well as through the difference between what moomoo pays customers in interest and the rate at which it can invest its customers’ spare cash. Moomoo also generates revenue through securities lending operations and commissions on international investments.
While moomoo does not receive payment for order flow (PFOF) on the trades executed on its platform, the broker’s clearing company, Futu Clearing Inc., an indirect, wholly-owned subsidiary of Futu Holdings Ltd, may receive PFOF or rebates in return for routing orders to third-party market centers.
Account and Research Amenities
Like most online brokers, moomoo offers a nice assortment of account and research amenities, although there are limitations because of the company’s focus on active traders over investors. For instance, moomoo does not offer portfolio analysis tools, and there are no banking services available. Moomoo does, however, provide third-party research on its platform. Most tools and research amenities on moomoo are related to supporting stock and options trading.
Stock and ETF Screener
Moomoo provides its users with a solid stock and ETF screener. In addition to preset screens, users can customize their own screens and use results to enter into trades directly from the screener. In addition, the screeners remain consistent across the different moomoo trading platforms for a consistent experience for the user. Moomoo also offers the ability to combine technical and fundamental criteria and create a watch list from that.
Mutual Fund Screener
Since Moomoo does not offer mutual funds, it does not offer a mutual fund screener.
Options Screener
Moomoo offers an options screener that lets investors set various criteria, including strike price, expiration date, option type, and implied volatility. The moomoo options screener allows users to quickly find options and options strategies meeting the trader’s criteria.
Fixed Income Screener
Moomoo does not offer fixed income trading, so it does not offer a fixed income screener.
Tools and Calculators
Moomoo does not offer many tools and calculators, but it does have an options calculator that allows users to select a specific option and change various criteria to find a theoretical price for that scenario. Examples include the ability to change the current date and stock price to see how a specific option’s price would, theoretically, change.
Charting
The charting functionality on moomoo is excellent. The platform provides users with more than 60 technical indicators and 38 drawing tools. Further, users can set up customized windows that allow them to monitor up to six stocks in what is essentially real time (the data is updated every 0.03 seconds).
In addition to this impressive functionality, moomoo users will find it easy to set up their own customized indicators for use in charts, with the ability to incorporate more than 190 preset functions. Charts can be set up to provide an alert when a particular price is reached.
News
Moomoo offers news to its users through multiple information channels on its platform, including headline news and 24/7 news in a waterfall format. In addition to these basic news platforms, moomoo also provides a financial calendar with economic and earnings release information, a section on U.S. macroeconomic news, and a section for content on specific topics in finance and economics. There is also a video feed for staying up on market news and analytics.
Third-Party Research
Moomoo offers research reports and analyst ratings for free, with content from third-party providers. The research analysis at moomoo is broken into three sections: a consensus rating, a target price, and information on specific companies providing the ratings. There is also a detailed review section for the research that users can access. Moomoo cautions users that the information in its research reports is for informational use only, and not a recommendation to buy or sell securities.
Cash Management
While Moomoo does not offer its customers check-writing, debit cards, or credit cards, the platform does have a daily automatic cash sweep once the customer initiates the sweep functionality on their account. The cash sweep currently pays a high interest rate of 5.1%, but this is only for new and existing customers utilizing a promotion to receive this rate, which is also subject to change at any time.
Existing customers can qualify for the higher cash sweep rate by depositing $500 into their account, or by providing a referral that leads to an account opened with at least a $100 balance. The standard cash sweep rate is a very low 0.03%, so it is incumbent on users to secure the higher rate for their account now that overnight interest rates are no longer 0%.
Fractional Shares
Moomoo supports fractional share trading for as little as $5.
Fractional Dividend Reinvestment Plan (DRIP)
Moomoo does not offer a dividend reinvestment plan, so the platform is somewhat limited when it comes to portfolio analysis tools.
Portfolio Analysis
Moomoo is geared toward active traders, and not buy-and-hold investors looking for traditional portfolio management tools related to asset allocation or financial planning. While the platform is somewhat limited when it comes to portfolio analysis tools, the tools that offered are well designed and effective.
Brokerage account customers will find moomoo’s Asset Analysis feature offers tools geared more towards showing returns along with additions and subtractions to the account. Standout tools include P/L Trend, which compares your portfolio’s profit/loss ratio with major indexes like the S$P 500 and Nasdaq, based on selected time, View by currency, which allows users to view assets in different currencies, converted to one asset at the real-time exchange rate, and Fund Details, where users can customize how they see money spent, money earned, and other key portfolio metrics.
Investopedia’s latest Sentiment Survey shows that investing in stocks remains investors’ top choice of what they would do if they had an extra $10,000, despite their concerns about inflation, bubbles in the stock market, and geopolitical uncertainty.
Investopedia’s latest Sentiment Survey shows that investing in stocks remains investors’ top choice of what they would do if they had an extra $10,000, despite their concerns about inflation, bubbles in the stock market, and geopolitical uncertainty.
Education
Considering its focus is on trading over investing, moomoo does a nice job of providing educational resources to its customers. While the content does lean more towards trading than investing, moomoo Learn is very easy to navigate. There are courses and tutorials to help traders get up and running on overall markets and moomoo’s platforms.
The platform even offers educational information “bubbles” along the user journey. Examples of content include stocks, options, earnings reports, and technical analysis. In addition to this content, there is some content that requires users to deposit $100 into their account. On top of this, moomoo also creates content in the form of webinars and through the Moo Community, a feed that shares potential trading ideas, related content, and forums by topic.
Customer Service
Customer service is available via live chat 24/7, by phone from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. ET on trading days, and by email. Response times were pretty fast, and licensed brokers were helpful.
Security and Reliability
Moomoo’s platform is secure and reliable, as it has not had a serious data breach or platform outage in the past four years. Further, moomoo’s platforms offer two-factor authentication, although the mobile apps do not have biometric screening, such as fingerprint or facial recognition. Accounts at moomoo are covered by the Securities Investor Protection Corporation (SIPC), and cash sweep accounts are handled with different banks to ensure all customer funds are insured. Trustpilot ratings for moomoo were mixed, with a nearly equal split between 5 and 1 reviews averaging to a 2.6 rating to date; five reviews liked the platform and low cost of trading, while others spoke of difficulty withdrawing money or being credited with promotional shares offered.
Transparency
Moomoo’s website shows good transparency, as all information about account types, fees, commissions, and available trading vehicles is clearly stated. There are drop-downs for many of the fee areas so that potential and existing customers can drill down beyond the basic fee information, so it is easy to understand how much they will be paying for commissions and account fees.
Available Account Types
Account types at moomoo are very limited. U.S. customers are limited to just an individual (taxable) cash or margin account. There are no options to open a trust, retirement, or even a joint account at moomoo.
The Bottom Line
Traders looking for a low-cost platform to trade stocks, ETFs, and options should look at moomoo. The brokerage platform offers commission-free trading in all of these markets. The platform is intuitive and easy to use, and customer preferences are reflected consistently across the platforms. Although you are not able to route your own orders, execution is actually performed by Futu Clearing Inc., an indirect, wholly-owned subsidiary of Futu Holdings Ltd. With an account that has an automatic sweep paying 5.1% interest on excess cash, and below average margin rates, moomoo is a strong new entrant to online brokers looking to attract active traders.
Compare moomoo to Similar Online Brokers
Broker | Star Rating | Minimum Deposit | Stock Trades | Per Contract Options | Max Option Legs | Number of No-Load Mutual Funds | Fractional Share Trading of Stocks | New Spot Bitcoin & Ethereum ETFs |
Moomoo | 4.3 | $0.00 | $0.00 | $0.00 | 4 | N/A | Yes | Yes |
Webull | 4.2 | $0.00 | $0.00 | $0.00 | 4 | N/A | Yes | Yes for Bitcoin ETFs |
eToro | 4.1 | Varies | $0.00 | $0.65 | 2 | N/A | Yes | Yes |
What Is moomoo?
Moomoo is an online trading and investing platform that offers customers access to commission-free trading in U.S. stock, ETF, and options markets. Moomoo has more than 21 million users on its platform from the U.S., Canada, Japan, Australia, Singapore, Hong Kong, and Malaysia.
Is moomoo Legit?
Moomoo is a legitimate company. It was founded in Palo Alto, California, in 2018, is regulated in the U.S. by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and is a member in good standing with the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) and SIPC. Further, the company is regulated by the leading securities regulator in the other countries it does business in. The company has $8 billion in assets on its platform, with more than 21 million users.
Who Owns moomoo?
Moomoo is owned by Futu Holdings Ltd, a U.S.-based company that is publicly traded under the stock symbol FUTU on the NASDAQ exchange. Its headquarters is in Palo Alto, California, and the company also has an office in Jersey City, New Jersey.
How We Picked the Best Online Brokers and Trading Platforms
Providing readers with unbiased, comprehensive reviews of online brokers and trading platforms is a top priority for Investopedia. We combined our industry research, subject matter expertise, and investor survey data to guide the research and weightings for our 2024 online broker awards. To collect the data, we sent a digital survey with 110 questions to each of the 26 companies we included in our rubric. Additionally, our team of researchers verified the survey responses and collected any missing data points through online research and conversations with each company directly. The data collection process spanned from Feb. 19 to March 19, 2024.
We then developed a proprietary model that scored each company to rate its performance across 11 major categories and 89 criteria to find the best online brokers and trading platforms. The score for each company’s overall star rating is a weighted average of the criteria in the following categories:
Additionally, during our 2024 research, many of the companies we reviewed gave us live demonstrations of their platforms and services via video conferencing methods and also granted our team of expert writers and editors access to live accounts so they could perform hands-on testing.
Through this all-encompassing data collection and review process, Investopedia has provided you with an unbiased and thorough review of the top online brokers and trading platforms.
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