Firstrade: Invest & Trade Reviews

So I’ve used almost every reputable trading app out there from E*Trade, Fidelity, Schwab, and others. Jan 2021 last year I decided to open an account with this company and downloaded Firstrade . Soon after, I transferred over a few thousand dollars to try it out and see how I like it. After about a month or so I decided to transfer money back to my bank account, and that’s where the trouble starts!!! Giving them my DOB, SS#, Drivers License, and other identifying info from the beginning wasn’t good enough to be considered as a “verified customer” and this app refused to give me my money back and blocked the ability to transfer back to the same bank account it came from !!! this app then began to ask me for very personal and sensitive info like copies of my bank statements and other items!! FYI…. I’ve been trading for over 25 years and NEVER has any company ever asked me for those types of sensitive documents EVER !!! At that point, that’s when I figured out that this was “deliberate by design” to keep customers money longer. I ended up having to contact SEC, FINRA, Attorney General, and my local congressman for help !! Which I should’ve NEVER have had to do to begin with 😡 Only then did this app fold and immediately contact me to return my money!! These people belong in jail !! 🤬🤬 You’ve ALL been warned!!!

GREAT APP. The UI design is so intuitive and ease to use. Love the new horizontal scrolling design for position & watchlist screen, it’s now so convenient to view each column of data by scrolling left or right instead of switching screens. “Tapping bid & ask to add legs to basket” on option chain is brilliant and making complex options trading so much easier. I also love the new way of closing complex options positions. Firstrade can list out all available combinations so that I can just pick the one I want to close. And the “Quick Edit” function is the best. I am the kind of option trader who need to edit complex open order couple times, this “Quick Edit” makes editing complex options open order effortless. However, I hope you guys can add IV, Greeks and Roll Forward feature for the option trading sooner than later.

this app's mobile app is easy to use, includes watch lists that sync with the website, and real-time streaming quotes are provided throughout Firstrade . Overall, for everyday investors, this app provides a reliable experience that will satisfy the majority.

Charting provides a clean experience, where an impressive 81 technical studies are available for stock charts. Also, options chains allow you to create multi-legged positions using the Order Basket and the integrated risk/reward profile shows your maximum gain or loss, which I found quite useful.

I am updating my review as it is 9:53 AM eastern standard time and my app is not working due to some network error!!! I am very grateful that I did not hold any positions from last night as I could be losing serious Money right now!!! This is the second time this has occurred and it always happens right when the market opens. Why would you be doing updates when the market is open?!!!! Very frustrated and am going elsewhere!

I like the new design however in the updated app, when looking at the options chain, the price of the underlying stock is no longer always visible at the top of screen but is rather located in various places as you scroll down. Please make the stock price always visible no matter how far you scroll down the options chain as it was in the previous version. Also, it would be nice if we could see both calls and puts simultaneously as you can on other platforms such as Ameritrade. Finally, if there was a way to see the previous closing price for each option that would be helpful as well Thanks! Will update review when changes are made!

This is one of the worst financial apps I’ve used. The process to create an account was incredibly long and painful. Took over a week to get approved despite emailing them and calling them. They always had some excuse why it took so long and they were very slow to respond via email. It was like pulling teeth. The approval process was ridiculous with their requirements to get approved needing my signed physical social security card. They would not accept my Passport or other proofs of SS# before which is insane. I’m on a number of other financial trading platforms and they were 100x easier to setup an account. The only reason I curious by this app was to easily trade OTC stocks like Planet 13. After finally talking to a manager and getting my account approved and waiting 1-2 days for my $$ to deposit and clear, I went to buy Planet 13 (PLNHF) and was told you’re not allowed to purchase stocks with 5 letters ending in F. Total rubbish if you ask me. Way to much work to still not be able to do what originally caught my eye. AVOID AT ALL COSTS!

You guys deserve a 5 star rating for look, feel, free trades, more advanced orders than Robinhood.. but Firstrade is flat out dangerous to trade options with. Prices are off, portfolio prices are off.. until you can figure out how to be a real broker, no one should trade options here. I sent a scathing email to the service dept with multiple images comparing ThinkOrSwim live prices in the time and sales window and the last price in my portfolio was $.60 off.. if you option trade... that’s.. that’s just beyond terrible. FIX THIS NOW.. I’d move all my money here if you can update option prices while looking at it, and update the last price shown in the portfolio.. how do you even launch a product and not update this for months?? Are you trying to steal people’s money?? FIX THIS PLEASE... your app could be the best so easily, and you could pull huge share from Robinhood by doing so...

UPDATE: moved from 1 star to 2 just on the fact the dev team responded to this review.. cmon! You can do this!

The mobile app and online platform are top notch. Trade execution has been fantastic as well. The mobile app doesn’t have everything you need for fundamental analysis or tech analysis but it’s rare that any trading platform does. Overall, it’s a good app.

What really brings this company down in my opinion is the customer service. I have submitted 2 support tickets over the span of the last 3 weeks and haven’t heard anything back. Nothing other than an automated email saying they received my ticket. When customers are having issues with their account that needs to be top priority. I understand that all platforms are experiencing an increase in user applications but there needs to be some sort of oversight with support issues or you won’t be able to keep active customers.

Would not recommend based on support issues alone.

I put 5k in, 6 days later it was populated into the account. I had to wait 5 days after it posted to trade it. Now after 11 days I am not enjoying the UI of Firstrade . I decided to remove my funds and go else where. I was rejected and had to wait 5 days to remove it. Once I said remove my funds, they sent me an email, saying pending ACH transfer in the subject. I thought nothing of it and used it for my records 3 days later... I am curious on the status and check that email for a link. That email said it’s on hold pending my review of the experience I had... told them basically this above. Then they released my funds and now I’m waiting another few days I presume to get my money back.

Held my funds until I reviewed them, vs giving me the money I own and can willingly take it out whenever I please.

Very unhappy with this experience. It’s going on 20ish days that cash has been locked in this maze...

Unfortunately when it comes to options trading on Firstrade it really falls short. While you can enter primitive trades, they don’t provide important things for serious traders such as the probability of profit or any of the option greeks on Firstrade (even finding the Greeks on the desktop platform is a bit tedious to be honest). Furthermore they make spreads difficult to manage as the spread is displayed as 2 separate legs in your portfolio and you must enter and exit the spreads without being able to see the actual spread price but rather you need to do the math yourself to see if your spread has made money or not. Also they do not allow any strategies involving the naked call, so no short strangles or short straddles are able to be used for any neutral and implied volatility plays.

Tried Firstrade out among a few others. The sign-up bonus here was the worst of the bunch, and Firstrade is glitchy and hard to use. Funds are now being held with no way to withdraw and they have requested my bank statement and other personal information in order to use my own money. Even after sending these documents, my transfer was rejected twice now. I personally feel the business practices here and borderline sketchy and can’t wait to close this account and move on.

Update: funds are released so editing a bit. Still not the greatest app, but moving to 3 stars since they did not scam me as it seems legit. Definitely better apps out there still.

My first impression of the new update was not good, because it looked like I’d lost information that I always used (total change, etc.). But that’s because I didn’t realize I could swipe left on the position screen! So I had the same negative impression as some other reviewers today. But now I see there is much more info, and I can easily sort by column also, a function I always wanted. As a long-time this app customer, I’m pleased with this new update. So far, I’ve never had any big problems using Firstrade . Always getting better. Nice job this app!

This update made everything worst I really wish I’d read the reviews first, the time it takes to place a trade & sell, aswell as load the option chain is horribly long, this will cost people money. Very disappointed, Firstrade was perfectly fine before the update, as this was my favorite broker for the past year & half 👎🏽 will definitely be switching. Will not be recommending you guys no more to any trading Audience or group unless you guys do something about this, WHY CHANGE SOMETHING IF IT WAS GOOD ALREADY?

1)Reading the graph chart is difficult in Firstrade
2)no app or text alert notification for price target, only email...hello who use the email and who wants to receive thousand emails per day
3)margin calculations is misleading and messy, if u gonna use margin stay away from this company use td Ameritrade or fidelity better
4) unit cost or original cost of the stock most time is missing (50%)and have to make a phone call to have someone follow up with the issue. ...headache
5) overall not a recommended trading company for anyone out there, margin rate is way higher than fidelity and Webull robinhood, there r a lot of other trading company out there you can join with a better service in terms of app and everything.

As an international student, it is very difficult to open an account to trade with no ssn. I use this app because it allows me to trade options on US companies, with no fees and you can start trading with as low as $1. I have called them and they were very nice and answered all my questions with no problem. I dont like the charting they have though, but i use TradingView for that.

Firstrade has seemed to have more glitches than ever. I feel that no significant changes have been made on Firstrade in the past 3 years that I have had it. I just opened it and it shows my balance but says I don’t have any stocks in my portfolio. The balance is correct but of course I have stocks. That happens often. There are often times when you can’t make a trade on Firstrade or it says it’s down. Honestly Firstrade development team is failing the company and they aren’t even trying at this point. Firstrade is super simplistic with no bells or whistles but yet it’s still problematic. It truly can barely do the basics.

I recently made an account and straight out of the start, really enjoyed the menu and how Firstrade runs and feels. I’ve been have just a couple problems that’s keeping me from investing; Firstrade has been shorting off whenever I click “help us finalize your this app account,” and every time I open up “deposit/withdraw” or “transfer to this app” it says “the service is temporarily unavailable. I really don’t know what to do, I like Firstrade but it doesn’t let me finish setting up my account. If those factors were working correctly I would 100% be using Firstrade .

Don’t bother wasting your time with Firstrade. The user interface is really bad, had to go through the website to do basic functions that wouldn’t work through Firstrade . Took a week for customer support to reply back. Tried calling the support number and it repeatedly said the wait time was 5 minutes for the 50 minutes that I waited before hanging up. This company is far from becoming a household name. Only was going to use for otc trades but do yourself a favor and go with Charles Schwab for access to the otc market if that’s what you need. Otherwise, go with one of the other commission free trading apps like robin hood or webull.

I have trying unsuccessfully for the past three weeks to be able to remove money from my account back into my bank account. They said I needed to upload a bank statement which I did but the statement needs my full account number which my bank can’t give me for security concerns. What I don’t get is why I can move as much money into my account with no issue but as soon as I want to move money back out into the same bank account there is suddenly a problem. Customer service has not been helpful in solving this and at this point I don’t know what to do. So I would obviously not recommend them to anyone.

Amazing app. It has helped me manage my portfolio extremely well through real time data and real time prices. Positions and trades are easily completed. The only two small issues which I recommend improving would be to decrease the wait time for deposits such as offering a credit and debit card deposit which could be available in minutes. Another issue is the privacy on Firstrade , If I don’t close Firstrade completely Firstrade remains open and anyone can log in.

Many $0 commission brokers are on the street now, and I have my brokerage account in each of those. In my experience, RH is only suitable for beginners, if u wanna do more like mutual fund or IRA, sorry u would be better with FirstTrade.

Overall, Firstrade has improved a lot like u can fund your account and trade complex options. But in the old App I can see indices easily now I can’t find it. Hope to see more improvements in the future.