Open a Capital One Investing Account
Capital One Investing is best for:
Investors who use automatic investing plans Capital One banking customers Beginner investors
Current promotion
Open and fund a new account online and get up to $600.
Capital One Investing at a glance
Account types Individual and joint non-retirement accounts Traditional IRA Roth IRA Custodial accounts Coverdell
Account minimum $0
Account fees $75 outgoing transfer fee
Stock/ETF commissions $6.95; $3.95 with automatic investing plans
Mutual funds $19.95 per trade; 511 no-transaction-fee mutual funds available
Options $6.95 + $0.75 per contract
Commission-free ETFs None
Tradable securities StocksMutual fundsETFsOptions
Broker-assisted trades $19.95
Research and data Free
Customer service Phone support weekdays, 8 a.m. to 9 p.m. Eastern time; email support; live chat
Where Capital One Investing shines
Automatic investing plan: Commissions can really add up if you dollar-cost average, which involves investing a set amount on a set schedule. Capital One Investing’s Sharebuilder Plan aims to cut those costs by charging just $3.95 for each regularly scheduled buy investors make into the same mutual fund, ETF or stock. Automatic investors can select from more than 7,000 stocks and ETFs and schedule investments on a weekly, biweekly or monthly basis. The plan can also be turned on and off at any time. It’s not something we’ve seen from other
online brokerages .
Low fees and commissions: Capital One Investing’s $6.95 trade commissions are more expensive than those at discount brokers, such as
TradeKing and OptionsHouse , and less expensive than those at full-service brokers, such as TD Ameritrade . The company also has low service fees: There’s no inactivity fee, broker-assisted trades are just $19.95, and trades of mutual funds that aren’t included in the no-transaction-fee program are also $19.95.
Tools and research: For a brokerage that doesn’t have a
trading platform (more on this below), Capital One Investing offers an impressive number of tools. The site’s investment screener quickly sorts through ETFs, mutual funds and stocks based on criteria including 90-day average volume, dividend yield, fund strategy and gross expense ratio. You can also sort by Morningstar rating and performance. A What if I Had Invested tool lets you learn from past mistakes, showing what a stock would be worth today if you’d invested a certain amount on a past date. The site also offers limited charting capabilities, a heat mapping tool, tracking alerts and the ability to create watchlists.
Portfolio Builder: This is a relatively new tool, but it’s one ETF investors should know about: Portfolio Builder creates a diversified portfolio of ETFs based on
asset allocation models. You simply choose your investing style, a dollar amount you’d like to invest on a regular basis — rather than selecting a number of shares to buy — and a fund family, and Capital One Investing builds a portfolio of six to eight ETFs. Your investment will be spread among those ETFs — purchased in partial shares if necessary — each time you choose to buy, after a flat $18.95 commission is subtracted. It represents a savings compared to investing in those ETFs individually, since Capital One Investing doesn’t offer any commission-free ETFs.
No account minimum: Capital One Investing is one of the few online brokers that requires no minimum deposit on brokerage accounts.
Where Capital One Investing falls short
No trade platform: The brokerage doesn’t have a separate desktop or web-based trade platform. Instead, you’ll make trades through the Capital One Investing website, which is well-organized and easy to use, and has a corresponding mobile app. Advanced or frequent traders will want a robust trading platform, but beginning investors — who seem to be the company’s main target — likely won’t notice this missing piece.
No commission-free ETFs: Capital One Investing’s automated investing plan lowers commissions costs, but the brokerage doesn’t offer any commission-free ETFs, which is a notable omission. As these funds become more popular, many online brokers are offering at least a small selection that can be purchased without commissions.
Limited investment selection: Capital One Investing clients can trade stocks, mutual funds, ETFs and options, but not Forex, futures or individual bonds.
The bottom line
Capital One Investing is clearly angled toward beginner investors, and it has the tools to help them build a solid base, along with low commissions and no account minimum. The brokerage’s automatic investment plan is a winner, and Capital One banking customers in particular will enjoy the administrative ease of putting all of their accounts under one roof. But advanced traders will want a larger investment selection and access to a trading platform.
Open a Capital One Investing Account
More from NerdWallet:
Arielle O’Shea is a staff writer at NerdWallet, a personal finance website. Email:
aoshea@nerdwallet.com . Twitter: @arioshea . http://www.nerdwallet.com/blog/investing/sharebuilder-capital-one-investing-review/ 
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