Public Investing Review 2024: Pros, Cons and Alternatives
- About Public Investing
- Pros and Cons
- Ways to Invest
- Fees
- How Public Compares
- Why You Should Trust Us
- Overall Rating
- FAQs
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Public Investing is best for active traders who want to invest in stocks, ETFs, options, alternative assets, and cryptocurrencies. The use of community and transparency are huge part of what makes Public Invest unique. Free research, commission-free trades, and portfolio screen sweeten the pot. The app also offers several educational resources (including live events), so it could be useful for beginners who want to jumpstart their investment journey.
About Public Investing
Public Investing is a transparent, innovative online social investing platform offering a wide range of investable securities and asset allocation plans. Public is one of the most noteworthy commission-free investing apps to check out in 2024.
The online brokerage mainly offers self-directed investing options best suited for active investors. But there are automated investing features and advisor-assisted portfolio options that may appeal to more hands-off individuals.
In addition to offering a $0 minimum requirement, Public allows you to filter its investment selection to see the securities that best align with your preferences. You can make informed decisions based on how the market moves or the actions of other traders and/or public figures.
The online brokerage's social feed offers you a way to follow different Public Investing members to see what and how they're investing. That way, you can share your investment knowledge with other users. You can also create chat groups with other investors, participate in investing events, and listen to live conversations through the app.
Investors can unlock even more worthwhile features, like no-fee extended trading hours and additional portfolio management tools with Public Premium. And unlock other premium account offers with some of the best online brokerages, Public Premium doesn't require a high account minimum to unlock. Instead, there's a $10 monthly charge.
In this social investing platforms review, we'll explore what Public.com has to offer investors in 2024.
Public Investing Start investing On Public's website
Insider’s Rating A five pointed star A five pointed star A five pointed star A five pointed star A five pointed star Icon of check mark inside a promo stamp It indicates a confirmed selection. PerksAccount Minimum$0
Fees0% stocks and ETFs; Crypto: 1% or 2% markup; Alternative assets: 2.5% per transaction; Public Premium: $10/month
Pros- Check mark icon A check mark. It indicates a confirmation of your intended interaction. No minimums and commission-free trading on stocks and ETFs
- Check mark icon A check mark. It indicates a confirmation of your intended interaction. Cryptocurrency trading available for over 20 coins and tokens; alternative assets available
- Check mark icon A check mark. It indicates a confirmation of your intended interaction. Offers fractional share investing for as little as $1; Premium plan includes advanced market data and insights
- Check mark icon A check mark. It indicates a confirmation of your intended interaction. Several community features that allow you to share insights and receive insights from other users; educational resources like live audio events also available
- con icon Two crossed lines that form an 'X'. No mutual funds
- con icon Two crossed lines that form an 'X'. Not the best platform for day traders; it doesn't allow day trading of stocks
Public is best for active traders who want to invest in stocks, ETFs, and cryptocurrencies while utilizing the expertise and insights of other Public.com members.
Product Details- App store rating: 4.7 iOS/4.3 Android
- Consider it if: You value portfolio diversification and want a social component to your investing experience.
Is Public Investing Right for You?
Both experienced traders and beginners could benefit from Public's large selection of trading tools, real-time data, custom portfolios, and transparent fee structure. While Public is quite suitable for active traders who want to take their investments into their own hands, it's arguably an even better fit for those who can benefit from the community-like investing features it provides.
However, Public doesn't offer a robo-advisor platform for passive investors. Its account options are also limited, as you can't open a retirement-savings, education savings, or custodial accounts through Public.com.
Public Pros and Cons
Public Investing Pros
- Low-cost trading and account options
- Multiple investment options (crypto, ETFs, stocks, treasury bills, royalties, etc.)
- Low-cost options trading
- Community and social trading features
- Educational resources
- Pre-built Investment Plans
Public Investing Cons
- Doesn't offer day trading for stocks
- Crypto investing is through a third-party platform
- No mutual funds
Is Public.com Trustworthy?
The Better Business Bureau gives Public.com an A+ rating. These ratings generally reflect the bureau's opinion of how well a company interacts with its customers. It hasn't racked up any major lawsuits over the past few years.
When evaluating companies, the bureau also considers things like type of business, time in business, licensing and government actions, and advertising issues. However, it's important to note that its ratings don't guarantee whether a platform will be reliable or perform well.
Public.com isn't involved in any major controversies or lawsuits.
Ways to Invest with Public
Stock and ETFs
Investors get access to more than 9,000 stocks and ETFs, as well as fractional shares trading on Public Investing. Moreover, Public offers over 300 over-the-counter (OTC) stocks that majorly focus on large-cap international companies.
Its "Investing Themes" feature allows you to toggle your portfolio according to your interests. The "Top Movers" tool lets you view which stocks are experiencing the highest or lowest movement during each day, and its "Stock Trends" feature compares the most popular investments to the least popular ones.
Other features include extended-hours trading for stocks, automatically reinvested dividends, and a comparison stock analysis tool called Compare.
Quick tip: You can now invest in royalties with Public Invest. However, the only available royalty to invest in through this platform is Shrek Franchise Original Music. This is Public's exclusive debut royalty asset and is comprised of 768 music tracks from the Shrek film franchise. In 2022, it had a 8.50% dividend yield.
Options Trading on Public
Low-cost options trading on Public is one of the investment app's strongest features. Rather than paying a per-trade fee on options contracts, Public promises to pay you 50% of the options revenue to reduce transaction costs. Moreover, options trades don't charge fees on commissions or contracts.
With Public you access long calls, long puts, and covered calls. The platform plans to offer more options and strategies soon.
Public provides investors with a suite of technical analysis tools, multi-leg options strategies with a comprehensive strategy builder, options research, asset tracking features, and an Options Hub to track earnings dates and trading opportunities.
Bonds and Treasury Bills
Public wants to make bond investing just as simple as investing in stocks and ETFs. The investment app offers thousands of corporate and Treasury bonds, with municipal bonds coming soon.
The intuitive bond search filters offer a more accessible way for investors to sort through bonds based on popularity, high yields, term lengths, and more. Corporate bonds also come with their own information pages on individual businesses' free cash flow, debt-to-equity-ratio, overall business health, and other key financial metrics.
You can also invest in treasury bills (aka T bills). These are generally low-risk, short-term investments. Public's offers a Treasury Account with a 5.2% yield and no account minimum. Plus, with a high-yield savings treasury account, investors don't have to pay state or local taxes on the income generated from the treasury bills.
Public Investment Plans
Public's Investment Plans are different collections of automated, pre-defined portfolios that utilize dollar-cost averaging as a means to mitigate risk in your investment portfolio. Portfolios differ based on asset allocations, risk tolerances, and investment styles.
Examples of Public.com Investment Plans include:
- Core Plans: Issuer-model portfolios that align with your risk tolerance (conservative, moderate, aggressive)
- Bonds Plans: Focused on exposure to the bond market and protecting investors against inflation, this plan is balanced based on your income.
- Theme Plans: Portfolios that trade assets based on certain market themes and trends, such as AI or the cannabis industry.
- Geographic Region Plans: Assets diversified across geographic regions, including exposure from global markets.
- Personalized Plan: Investors can set up their own portfolio asset allocations up to 20 stocks, ETFs, and/or crypto-assets (must be a Public Premium user).
All pre-built Investment Plans can be adjusted in 1% increments once you sign up with a Plan. Users can also evenly split their funds across all assets in their portfolios.
Crypto-Account
Public.com partnered with Bakkt Crypto, a licensed virtual currency company and licensed money transmitter by the New York State Department of Financial Services. Although you can access and manage your crypto account through Public.com, remember that you're technically opening an account with Bakkt Crypto, so your crypto account will be separate from your Public brokerage account.
Cryptocurrency accounts can hold and trade bitcoin, ether, dogecoin, and more. You can set up automatic routine trades for either individual tokens or personalized crypto combinations. Recurring investments can be scheduled on a daily, weekly, biweekly, or monthly basis.
Public provides a multitude of helpful investing and crypto-related content. This includes stats, news, live crypto analysis, and more.
Alternative Assets
Public recently introduced alternative assets to its platform. This now gives its users access to contemporary art, NFTs, collectibles, and more. In addition, the platform has vetted each available investment, and it takes away a lot of the legwork in maintaining each asset by managing things like storage, authentication, and more.
This new offering makes diversification much easier since you'll ultimately have your fair pick of stocks, ETFs, crypto, and alternative assets.
Public Premium
A Public Premium account offers all the same benefits and trading features of a regular Public brokerage account, but with additional enhanced trading features like custom Investment Plans, beta access to new features, VIP account management for trades and transfers.
You can also get a complete breakdown of your asset allocation in comparison with Morningstar benchmarks, real-time customer price alerts, weekly market breakdowns, an upgraded stock and ETF dashboard, and exclusive audio content.
Public Fees
A standard Public brokerage account has no minimum requirement and no management fees. A Public's Premium account costs $10 per month. But folks with at least $20,000 deposited into their account when they sign up for a standard account unlock complimentary Premium access.
You'll lose complimentary Premium access if your account ever goes below $15,000.
Public Premium members are exempt from paying nominal fees based on the assets in their investment plans. Premium members also get free extended trading hours and OTC trades ($2.99 per trade for non-Premium members).
Bakkt Crypto charges a fee of 1.25% of the total crypto order amount when you add cryptocurrencies to your Investment Plan. Also, alternative assets charge commission fees of 2.5% per transaction. Treasury accounts charge 0.05% per month based on your Treasury account balance.
Accounts with no activity in the last 6 months, or balances of under $70 are subject to a $3.99 monthly inactivity fee.
Public Investing Alternatives
Public Investing vs. M1 Finance
Public and M1 Finance both offer stocks, ETFs and crypto. But the two brokerages differ when it comes to fees, investment options, trading features, and tools.
Public Investing is best suited for investors interested in buying and selling alternative investments (like wine and art), Treasury bills, royalties, and bonds. It's also better for trading options, plus fractional shares trading on Public Investing.
Although M1 Finance has a higher minimum requirement ($100 minimum and $500 required to open a retirement account), it's an overall better option for investors looking for a wider range of account types and goal-planning features. Available assets through M1 Finance include stocks, mutual funds, REITs, ESG investing options, ETFs, private equity, and crypto.
Public vs. Tornado
Public and Tornado both offer a vast selection of stocks and ETFs. Both investment platforms are great choices for those who value educational resources, community investing, and social media-style features.
Tornado only offers stocks, ETFs, and American Depositary Receipts (ADRs). Tornado is a better option for beginners as it launched its Learn and Earn program. This program allows investors to complete educational modules on topics like economics and investing while earning monetary rewards.
Public is the best choice if you want to access a larger selection of investment options and advanced trading features.
Related Terms
- Stocks: Available through most of the best stock trading apps, stocks represent shares, or portions, of ownership within public companies (companies who've passed the IPO phase). You can purchase these investments through online brokerages, robo-advisors, and other investment platforms.
- ETFs: Composed of a mix of stocks, bonds, and commodities, ETFs trade like stocks. In other words, you can easily exchange them during the stock exchange's hours. However, they're less risky than stocks because they contain a basket of different securities.
- Fractional shares: As the name implies, fractional shares are simply portions of full investment shares. Several online brokerages and investment platforms allow for fractional share investing, but you'll typically need to meet a small minimum dollar amount to do so.
Why You Should Trust Us: How We Reviewed Public
We examined Public using Personal Finance Insider's rating methodology for investing platforms to compare pricing, account flexibility, ethics, security, and overall customer experience when reviewing investing platforms. Platforms are given a rating between 0 and 5.
Investing platforms generally offer multiple assets, trading tools, fees, and other resources. Some investing platforms are better for more advanced investors or active investors, while others may better suit beginner investors and passive investors. Public was evaluated with a focus on how it performed in each category.
Business Insider's Overall Public Investing Rating
| Feature | Rating (out of 5) |
| Fees | 4.25 |
| Investment selection | 3.00 |
| Access | 4.50 |
| Ethics | 4.88 |
| Customer service | 4.00 |
| Overall score | 4.14 |
Public.com — Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
What is Public Investing, and how does it differ from other investment platforms? Chevron icon It indicates an expandable section or menu, or sometimes previous / next navigation options.Public Investing is an online investing platform that combines traditional stock trading with social networking features. This allows users to buy fractional shares of stocks and ETFs while engaging with a community of investors. Beginners can benefit from learning from experienced traders, plus access to Public's professional insights and educational content.
Does Public Investing charge any fees for traders or account maintenance? Chevron icon It indicates an expandable section or menu, or sometimes previous / next navigation options.Public Investing is a fairly transparent platform and doesn't charge commission fees on stocks and ETFs trades. Certain assets, like alternative assets and cryptocurrencies, are subject to fees. Public also charges a $3.99 monthly inactivity fee.
Can users invest in anything besides stocks and ETFs on Public Investing? Chevron icon It indicates an expandable section or menu, or sometimes previous / next navigation options.Public Investing mainly offers stocks and ETFs, as well as fractional shares. Investors can also trade cryptocurrencies, treasury bills, bonds, and other alternative investments.
How does Public Investing ensure the security of its users investments and personal information? Chevron icon It indicates an expandable section or menu, or sometimes previous / next navigation options.Public Investing is equipped with advanced security measures. Some Public Investing app security features include data encryption software, protected accounts, and identity verification processes to protect account holders' personal information. Public Investing accounts are also covered by SIPC insurance up to $500,000.
What educational resources does Public Investing offer to its users? Chevron icon It indicates an expandable section or menu, or sometimes previous / next navigation options.Learning to invest with Public Investing. Access a wide range of educational resources, like live events with industry experts, daily market briefings, and a range of articles explaining investing basics. Account holders can also benefit from Public's social feeds as a way to learn additional insights, investment strategies, and market trends from the Public Investing community.
Tessa Campbell Investing and Retirement Reporter Tessa Campbell is an investing and retirement reporter on Business Insider’s personal finance desk. Over two years of personal finance reporting, Tessa has built expertise on a range of financial topics, from the best credit cards to the best retirement savings accounts.ExperienceTessa currently reports on all things investing — deep-diving into complex financial topics, shedding light on lesser-known investment avenues, and uncovering ways readers can work the system to their advantage.As a personal finance expert in her 20s, Tessa is acutely aware of the impacts time and uncertainty have on your investment decisions. While she curates Business Insider’s guide on the best investment apps, she believes that your financial portfolio does not have to be perfect, it just has to exist. A small investment is better than nothing, and the mistakes you make along the way are a necessary part of the learning process.Expertise: Tessa’s expertise includes:- Credit cards
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