Webull Review
Webull is a platform for traders who wish to enter the financial markets with no account minimums and commission-free trading. Webull is not a full-service broker, thus its clients are responsible for certain parts of portfolio management. Customers of Webull tend to be younger than those of other brokerage firms. The cost-free approach of the broker will also appeal to aggressive traders. Webull’s commission-free options trading will attract the attention of active options traders, while other brokers, including Schwab, continue to charge commissions for each leg of options deals.
Introduction
Webull, a Chinese-owned company with headquarters in Young York and recently expanded operations to Hong Kong and Singapore, was founded in 2017 and is a relatively new online broker. This mobile-first debut in May of 2011 reflected Webull’s most crucial target demographic: millennials. Webull is positioned itself to serve newer and more active traders, as well as those attracted to a platform that offers a wide array of free services, such as no account minimums, commission-free trading of stocks/ETFs and their options, and several cryptocurrencies. With a less complete offering than full service competitors, Webull is geared for the self-directed investor. Customers of Webull, however, get a lot of bang for their buck: a beautiful platform with a variety of helpful tools and features, as well as competitive profit rates. We will examine Webull in depth to help you determine if it is the best broker for your portfolio.
Pros & Cons
Pros
• No fees on stocks/ETFs, options, and cryptocurrencies
• Easy account setup and acceptance of options, with no fees or minimums
• Free streaming quotes in real-time
• Fractional shares are now offered
• Availability of extended trading hours and pre-market trading
Cons
• No return on surplus cash
• Possible abandonment of execution because of payment for order flow (PFOF)
• Limited selection of portfolio management tools
• No access to fixed income, mutual funds, forex, or futures markets
The Pros Described
• Commission-free trading on stocks/ETFs, options, and cryptocurrencies: Everyone desires something gratis, and that is precisely what Webull provides. No-commission trading in stocks, ETFs, options, and cryptocurrencies is particularly tempting to traders who do not require hand-holding. Less expensive implementation makes it simpler for traders to earn from a trading method.
The account opening procedure takes only a few minutes. There are no account minimums or fees. You will acquire account and options trading approval very quickly, and adding your bank account and setting up a free ACH transfer takes only a few extra minutes. Even though the transfer may not be complete for a few days, you can obtain purchasing power on the account after the transfer has been initiated.
Webull provides free streaming real-time quotations and a three-month free membership to Level Advance quotes.
The service is Nasdaq TotalView, and it provides a higher depth of bids and offers on security in addition to market depth information. NASDAQ Market Center also contains auction crossover information for all NASDAQ-NYSE and regionally listed equities.
• Webull now offers fractional shares: fractional shares were added to the company’s offerings in the past year. This enables investors to purchase a portion of a share based on their available funds. 2
• Access to extended hours and pre-market trading: Many active traders prefer to trade the market during pre-market and/or extended hour trading periods, and Webull customers have access to these hours. Traders have the option of keeping their orders active during non-standard trading hours.
Cons Explanation
Webull customers do not earn interest on cash balances in their accounts. Due to Webull’s lack of support for mutual fund trading, consumers are unable to put their excess funds in a money market fund. This may not be a significant issue in the current climate of ultra-low short-term interest rates, but if rates rise, the lost potential to earn income on extra cash may become more apparent.
Webull can offer free trading and all of its other services since it receives paid for order flow (PFOF). This may reduce the quality of Webull’s price execution. The speed and accuracy with which orders are routinely filled today reduces the significance of this issue for the majority of traders, but day traders and those employing techniques that are highly dependent on execution quality may be at a disadvantage.
• Limited selection of portfolio management tools While Webull’s platform offers a variety of helpful tools for traders, the portfolio management capabilities are limited. Customers of Webull are expected to make independent investment and trading decisions. There are no daily or intraday market messages, nor are there any research or analyst reports on equities other than aggregated analyst statistics. Webull does not provide financial advisors, rebalancing portfolio recommendations, tax lot control on sales, or a dividend reinvestment programme (DRIP).
• No access to fixed income, mutual funds, foreign exchange, or futures markets; Webull only offers stocks, ETFs, options, and cryptocurrencies. Webull does not offer fixed income investments, mutual funds, international stocks, futures, or foreign exchange. What one sees is what one receives.
Usability
Webull is user-friendly, with intuitive navigation. Webull offers an equally well-designed website, desktop workstation, and mobile application. Having been constructed so recently, the platforms share a contemporary appearance and feel.
Both the desktop workstation and the website have a menu and window layout that emphasises a primary group of buttons down the left side of the screen. These buttons launch customizable quote boards, a stock page with a wealth of information on a single stock or ETF, a market overview page, a stock screener, a trading screen that is highly customizable on the desktop platform, an account tab displaying balances, positions, buying power, performance, risk level related to margin leverage, bank transfer access, and a paper trading area. There are a few minor variations between the website and the workstation, and the website only provides options for a single leg.
The mobile application utilises key functions in a manner identical with the website and desktop, however there are design modifications to accommodate smaller screens. The navigation buttons at the bottom of the app screen adapt to the currently shown content. For instance, an options button displays as a selection at the bottom of the screen displaying a certain stock or ETF.
Directly from stock screener findings, watchlists may be built on all platforms with ease. Additionally, watchlists are constant throughout the desktop, online, and mobile apps, so there is no need to configure them on multiple devices. Order entry is simple, and traders can personalise trading ticket information, such as the order type and share quantities they use most frequently.
Trade Experience
Webull’s workstation is extremely configurable, with accessible templates for stock and ETF trading, options trading, day trading, and cryptocurrency trading. Traders can toggle between these many template sites and construct their own page layouts using widgets. The widgets provide a variety of information, including news, fundamentals, options, order entry, time & sales, etc. The widgets can be grouped to conserve screen space, with the various widgets accessible via tabs at the window’s top. Widget windows can also be grouped together so that when a stock is entered in one widget, the other widgets in the group are automatically updated.
The trading configuration also allows for a highly personalised user experience, including hot buttons, a home page loaded on startup, default stock and option orders, and commonly traded share quantities. Workstations offer the greatest degree of adaptability and personalization. The website did not contain all of the trade page layouts available on the workstation, and the website did not provide access to the learning centre. The system will direct you to relevant pages, such as the stocks window to examine stock-specific information, news, options, charts, and an overview of analyst ratings. Additionally, it is essential to remember that the service only enables single-leg option trading.
It is simple to place an order using Webull. The order screen can be added to many screens, and the stock order entry screen has contingent orders for stop loss and/or profit taking levels. You can also generate order tickets straight from your account balance, and by clicking on the bid or offer of a market, the corresponding information will be instantly entered into the trade order widget. Active positions and orders were clearly displayed on the chart and could be traded immediately from the charting tool.
Mobile Trade Experience
The business announced the introduction of Webull 8.0 on May 23, 2022. This most recent version of the mobile platform provides traders with improved charting tools, alert settings, options trading, and financial reporting capabilities. The mobile app has the same fundamental functions as the website and desktop application, but it is designed differently to accommodate smaller screens. The menu buttons adjust to the current screen’s information and provide the most frequently used functionality. In addition to displaying open positions, mobile charting enables instant trading from the chart. Additionally, Webull’s sketching capabilities were more user-friendly than the mobile charting software of a number of other brokers. The mobile app does not provide access to Webull’s stock screener, but it is possible to turn internet or desktop search results into a mobile-syncable watchlist.
Variety of Services
Webull specialises in U.S. stock and ETF trading, as well as U.S.-listed options, and only accepts personal and IRA accounts in the U.S.
Webull’s product offers may not be comparable to those of full-service brokers, but they satisfy the needs of its younger, less interested in fixed income customer base. Webull, unlike many full-service brokers, enables trading in a variety of cryptocurrencies for as little as $1. In addition, the company is actively beta-testing a bitcoin wallet. Fixed income, mutual funds, futures, and conventional foreign exchange trading are not available. However, Webull has added both fractional shares and over-the-counter (OTC) equities in the past year, so its offering continues to expand. Using Webull, investors can trade the following:
• Long and short US-listed stocks/ETFs (2,000 stocks are currently on Webull’s easy-to-borrow list for short sales).
• US-Listed Stock and ETF Options
• OTC (over the counter) securities (100 plus)
• Trading in Bitcoin, Dodgecoin, Bitcoin Cash, Ethereum, Litecoin, ZEC, XLM, Shiba Inu, Chiliz, Synthetix, and other cryptocurrencies.
Order Types
Webull provides the most popular order types, which include market, limit, stop, stop limit, and trailing stops. There are also specialty orders such as one-cancel-the-other (OCO), one-triggers-an-OCO (OTOCO), and one-triggers-the-other (OTO), which allow traders to set up a conditional order in which a filled limit order establishes an OCO attaching both a stop loss and a profit taking level order once the initial position has been established. Webull does not offer market-if-touched, market-on-close, or orders of a similar nature.
Webull does not provide traders control over tax lots on sales to terminate a long stock position; instead, they employ the first-in, first-out (FIFO) system. In addition, Webull lacks automated trading, strategy backtesting, and the capacity to stage orders.
Trading Equipment
Although Webull’s trading system is simple, it does the job. Webull reports a net price increase of $0.008 per share for orders of 100-9. There is no intelligent order routing, automated trading, backtesting capabilities, or the ability to route your own orders. However, this is consistent with the broker’s minimalist approach to keeping expenses low.
Costs
Webull is a cost-free broker and not a discount broker. They offer commission-free trading in stocks, ETFs, and listed options, as well as free account minimums and comprehensive platforms and tools. Additionally, Webull’s margin rates are competitive. When we discuss commission-free trading, we mean that Webull does not charge for trades. However, they do pass along Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) transaction fees and different exchange and regulatory costs, which are often pennies or fractions of pennies per contract. The expenses of Webull are as follows:
• No commissions on online trading of stocks, ETFs, or OTCBB securities
• No commissions on options traded on an exchange
• No trading fees for cryptocurrencies
• Margin is provided for leveraged and short sales, and margin rates are proportional to account size. By threshold: 6.99% under $2,000; 6.9% up to $100,000;.99% up to $20,000;.9% up to $00,000;.99% up to $1,000,000;.9% up to $1,000,000; and 3.99% thereafter.8
• Money transfers: ACH Deposits and withdrawals are free; Wire Transfers are $for domestic deposits and $12 for international deposits, and $for domestic withdrawals and $0 for international withdrawals.
• Fees for paper statements: confirmations are $per confirm, account statements are $per statement, and the mailing charge for prospectuses is $2.
How This Broker Generates Income from and for You
With the rush for commission-free trading, it has become more difficult to comprehend how brokerage firms generate income. Webull is not shy about telling investors how they make money, which enables them to offer a sophisticated platform with no trading fees.
• Payment From Order Flow: Webull is clearly all-in on the continuing race towards no commission trading – even options are free to trade on Webull now – and they are very transparent about the fact that PFOF is the primary reason they can offer no commission trading and no fees for access to their well-built platforms at the top of their pricing page.
Webull receives an average of $0.00108 per share and $0.00 per options contract for its order flow. The options figure is average, however the stock figure is, as expected, among the highest among all reviewed brokers.
• Interest on Cash: Webull’s capacity to produce income from cash in its traders’ accounts is a crucial source of revenue, as the company does not pay interest on cash holdings. When you have cash in your account, Webull retains the interest it generates.
Webull offers a stock lending scheme and shares the revenue made with the investor lending the stocks. The program’s interest rate is totally dependent on the market demand for your securities.
Account and Analysis Capabilities
Webull provides an extensive selection of account information and research tools, such as fundamental data, news, and charts, to assist traders in making informed investing decisions and identifying companies to trade. However, Webull does not offer the tools and information offered by full-service brokers, such as daily market updates, individual analyst reports, and portfolio analysis tools with a high level of depth.
Investing Screener
Webull provides a stock screener on its workstation and website, but not on its mobile app. The screener is restricted to stocks and is simple to use, however it lacks the capability of competing broker screeners. Webull provides statistics and charts for markets in the United States, Hong Kong, Canada, China, and India, however it appears that U.S. account users can only trade in U.S. markets. For the United States, you can select the exchanges to include (NYSE, AMEX, NASDAQ) and filter by more than industry sectors, financial statistics such as EPS, P/E, and Dividends, and by nine pre-set technical indicators, including overbought/oversold and moving-crosses.
The technical indications are user-friendly, although relatively restricted. We were unable to scan for stocks with moving averages exceeding 200 periods. Other possible filters include a consensus analyst rating with five grades (strong buy, buy, hold, underperform, sell) and whether or not the stock is eligible for margin trading. It is not possible to filter stocks for socially responsible investing (SRI). You can store and convert a personalised search to a watchlist. When selecting a stock from the search results, the same page displays key statistics and financial data as well as an order window for that stock.
Screening ETFs and Mutual Funds
Webull does not provide an ETF screener and does not offer mutual funds on its platform.
Options Analyzer
Webull does not have a screener to identify specific option trade opportunities, but they do have tools to help construct the most common one, two, and four leg option strategies (vertical spreads, straddles/strangles, butterflies/condors, etc.) by selecting the strategy from a drop-down menu on the option chain table. The payment graph at maturity for the strategy may then be displayed, and tools can be used to further tweak the strategy by using other order types or altering the distance between strike prices in multi-leg schemes.
Fixed Income Filtering
Webull’s platform does not offer fixed income.
Charting
Webull developed its own charting tool, which is an excellent offering. Because of the lower screen size, mobile app charting is a little different than on the web and on a desktop computer, but it is quite intuitive. Order tickets and alerts may be generated straight from charts, and regularly used analysis like as Bollinger Bands®, simple and exponential moving averages (SMA/EMA), relative strength index (RSI), average trading range (ATR), and many stochastics variants can be added to a chart with ease. Additionally, charting intervals of 1 and 30 seconds were recently introduced to the company’s charting capabilities. However, it appears surprising that neither the 0, 100, nor 200-period MA were included in the program’s six defaults.
Both systems’ charting capabilities include a magnet feature that makes it simple to place trend lines at the exact high or low for a given period. Charts provide open orders and cost basis information, if appropriate, and the mobile app charting features a useful set of buttons that alert the trader if the stock is marginable or shortable, along with the applicable leverage multipliers. The majority of traders who use charts to support investment/trading decisions and aid establish trade timing and entry/exit points should find Webull’s charting tool to be useful.
Webull does not currently provide an API for third-party charting programmes to access its price data. Traders seeking customizable programme trading, pattern recognition, and more advanced market analysis and charting techniques would likely use different software, but they should be aware that Webull does not currently provide an API for third-party charting programmes to access its price data.
Equipment and Calculators
In contrast to full-service brokers, Webull does not provide financial calculators or similar instruments. There is no in-depth portfolio analysis, no automated rebalancing, and no other conventional portfolio management capabilities seen at larger online brokers.
Trading Concept Generation
Webull does not provide an automated idea generator; nonetheless, there are numerous stock breakdown lists to uncover opportunities, such as the most active, biggest movers, earnings calendar, heat maps, and sector/industry breakdowns.
News
The Benzinga Newswire, a simple scrolling window with news headlines, business stories, and information on economic releases, is supplied for free to all clients. By clicking on a news line of interest, it is possible to get articles. The news screen will be particular to the stock selected in the stocks tab for analysis.
Independent Research
Webull does not offer third-party research, but they do provide a highly clear and user-friendly graphical representation of evaluations from numerous analysts.
Plan for Fractional Dividend Reinvestment (DRIP)
Webull does not have a dividend reinvestment plan at this time, although fractional share capabilities have been implemented. According to the company, this may be added in the future.
Money Management
Webull does not offer cash management services for trading accounts. Webull makes the concession of forgoing interest on cash balances in order to provide a free platform and commission-free trading.
SRI/ESG Research Infrastructure
Webull does not provide the capacity to screen or search for stocks or ETFs based on socially responsible investing (SRI) or environmental, social, and governance (ESG) aspects.
Portfolio Analysis
Webull does not offer a comprehensive set of portfolio analysis tools, but it provides what the majority of self-directed investors require. This includes the option to obtain tax forms, account statements, and confirmations via online or desktop platforms. Real-time reports and data include realized/unrealized gains/losses, gains/losses net of deposits and withdrawals, income from dividends and interest, unrealized long-term and short-term capital gains, and the internal rate of return (IRR), as well as margin and buying power data.
Education
Webull’s Learning Center does not offer investor education on portfolio management and trading, so Webull traders are mostly on their own in terms of learning how to manage an account and trade. Instead, Webull provides a series of text- and image-based guides for using its platforms and features. There are sections introducing the workstation, discussing frequently used features, demonstrating how to alter layouts, and highlighting the available trading tools.
Webull allows traders to check their order history, but does not provide a trading log. It is also not surprising that a zero-commission broker’s free platform lacks sophisticated back testing capabilities. Although Webull offers a paper trading feature to help traders become familiar with placing orders and trading, the features are extremely limited. You cannot enter a limit order with conditional stop loss and profit taking orders, unlike when trading on the actual platform. Additionally, options trading is not available through Webull’s paper trading. As a result, you may not be able to imitate your actual market behaviour. Consequently, the paper trading function serves its intended purpose of familiarising novice traders with the interface and the fundamentals of order entry.
Customer Support
Due to Webull’s restricted focus on younger, tech-savvy, self-directed consumers who are primarily interested in the no-cost trading opportunity, customer service is limited. Webull does not employ financial consultants, but customers can chat with a live broker if they are willing to wait on hold for more than two hours on average.
• Only available during business hours.
During business hours, online chat with a live representative is available.
Safety and Dependability
• Two-factor authentication is supported on all supported systems.
• Biometric authentication is available via fingerprint or facial recognition on mobile devices.
• Trading access is protected by a second six-digit number passcode, offering an additional layer of security.
Webull has no significant platform outages.
• There has been no data breach at Webull.
• Webull exceeds the Securities Investor Protection Corporation (SIPC) protection of $0 thousand ($20 thousand in cash) by purchasing an additional insurance policy with protection limits per individual of $37. million ($900 million in cash) for losses unrelated to account losses in value of securities.
Transparency
Webull’s pricing is really transparent and straightforward.
The company discloses in the second paragraph of its pricing page, along with a link to their SEC rule 60 disclosure, that payment for order flow (PFOF) is its primary source of revenue, allowing commission-free trading on its platform. Other fees are clearly outlined on the website’s pricing page. Webull describes how they pass on SEC, exchange, and regulatory fees that are typically fractions of a penny per unit of volume traded.
On the pricing page, Webull’s tiered margin rates and associated buying power are clearly displayed, but it was more difficult to locate disclosures regarding the risks of margin trading. Webull does, however, provide a useful account risk metric that visibly indicates to a trader if they are at a higher danger for a margin call.
Webull has chosen a novel strategy, with its transparency about payment for order flow serving as the foundation of its free business model. In contrast to other brokers who bury this information in the fine print, the company informs clients that they can have either a free platform or no payment for order flow, but not both.
Existing Account Types
Webull offers taxable cash and margin accounts to individuals. The distinction between these accounts is that the cash account is used exclusively for cash transactions, meaning that funds must be deposited into the account before assets may be purchased. The margin account enables you to borrow against your portfolio to purchase more assets after your account’s worth has reached or exceeded $2000. In addition to the two individual tax accounts, Webull supports the following:
• Traditional individual retirement account (IRA)
• Roth 401k
• Rollover IRA3
Final Verdict
Webull is an excellent option for traders and aggressive investors who do not require hand holding. There is no minimum account size, margin rates are competitive, and stocks, ETFs, options, and cryptocurrencies incur no commissions. In addition, you have access to well-designed, user-friendly trading platforms for PC and mobile devices that include no-cost trading tools. While full-service brokerages such as Charles Schwab now offer commission-free trading in stocks and ETFs, Webull’s $0.commission per option contract and higher margin rates make it an attractive alternative for margin users and active option traders who may find Webull’s options trading tools somewhat lacking (but still functional).
With technology delivering satisfactory fills for limit and other order types, Webull will satisfy the majority of traders. However, NASDAQ Level quotes are insufficient to entice sophisticated day traders who desire the finest price execution and total control over how their orders are routed. Investors seeking a full-service broker with financial planning services and tools, as well as traders whose strategies primarily rely on execution speed and quality, will need to search elsewhere. Webull is for the self-directed trader who desires to minimise expenses to the greatest extent possible.
Should I be concerned with Webull’s compensation for order flow?
Although we dislike payment for order flow, it is an industry standard. Fidelity stands out as the largest broker to reject this simple revenue source, but we also consider how a broker discloses its payment for order flow policies. Webull is transparent about how it generates revenue and the role that paying for order flow plays in its ability to operate as a zero-commission broker. 1 Webull also does not game its platform to encourage overtrading, thereby avoiding controversies that another PFOF-reliant broker has encountered. Whether or not you should be concerned with the PFOF at a certain broker depends on your perspective on the topic and whether or not the platform supplied is worth the subtle price.
Who is superior, Webull or Robin Hood?
Webull and Robinhood are both geared toward novice investors in search of minimal fees and robust mobile trading capabilities for important assets. However, there are distinctions in the approaches of these two brokers. First, compared to Robinhood, Webull has a modest cryptocurrency markup, which is incorporated into the pricing when you trade. According to Robinhood, any trade slippage is the market, and there is no markup. 1 Robinhood aims to launch a cryptocurrency wallet functionality by the end of 20221, while Webull is presently beta testing its own wallet. In addition to this disparity in crypto prices and capabilities, Webull’s trading and analytical tools are more extensive than Robinhood’s. If you intend to trade rather than merely purchase and hold with either of these programmes, Webull offers a superior platform for doing so wisely, with feature-rich charting and other trading-focused upgrades. Specifically, Webull’s paper trading tool enables you to test out new techniques and assets without risking real money.
