Traders with little or no experience should not think rolling out with them. Professionals with BoA account looking to invest in stocks should find it easier. Associated with names like Merrill Lynch and Bank of America, one expects a quality performance from Merrill Edge, but its a bummer to see that they actually fail to perform to the expectations. The web is full with complaints over dodgy trade execution, bugs in their tools and poor customer service when trying to report any of these problems. The website has been structured good and information flow is easy.
For detailed information, browse through our detailed reviews below.
What Type of Accounts you can open with Merrill Edge?
There's delay in opening of account and automation is needed to make the process easier for the clients. Traders have to fill a paper after signing up which authorizes the future transfer of funds between your listed banks and the trading account. The list of all account offered by Merrill Edge is:
- Individual
- Joint
- Custodial
- IRA's
- College Account: NextGen Direct 529 | Custodial (UGMA/UTMA)
- Retirement: Rollover IRA | Roth IRA | Traditional IRA |
- Small Business: Investment Account | Investor Account | Retirement Solutions |
Merrill Edge offers the following selection of investment products:
- Stocks
- Options
- ETF's
- Fixed Income
- Annuities
- Mutual Funds.
Merrill Edge: Fees & Commissions
In terms of commission rates- they're slightly higher than the market average, but a good market research provided by them gives a value for that. You can have low commissions provided that you have large amount of money in your account, but I don't see why one should have that.
Currently, they are offering free trades on certain investments as they are a new company and are trying to woo customers, but I believe they might take that off-shelf once they have a large customer base.
Merrill Edge Platform Performance and Tools
Certainly, they have to go miles when it comes to platform. They have a basic web based platform with too many bugs, the tools are not spared either. Trading tools at the company are very basic, not offering a lot of functionality (for example, advanced order types) present at most other online brokers. The trading platform is customizable with some good tools such as Retirement Evaluator, Asset Allocator, Net Worth Estimate and College Planning Tools.
Merrill Edge MarketPro is the flagship trading platfrom. To get Merrill Edge MarketPro, you have to open an investment account and trade 15 times per quarter, or, maintain total combined balances of $50,000 or more in your Bank of America banking and Merrill Lynch investment accounts. The main features provided in the platform are:
- Real-Time Market Analysis and Global Research: You can choose and build your own watchlists, set alerts and get streaming quotes and financial news. You will have access to BofA Merrill Lynch Global Research.
- Trading and Account Access: You can monitor your portfolio in real time.
- Streaming & Interactive Charting: Merrill Edge provides the users with good and interactive charting tools that use streaming market data. You can customize 36 technical analysis studies to help you identify trends, and keep your investing on track.
How good is their Customer Service and Support?
They are among the medium satisfaction level when it comes to customer services. We have seen lot of comments mainly because of the delay in trade executions.
Education & Training for Traders
They concentrate on the traders who have long term investment plan in mind rather than day/active traders, thus they don't have a good knowledge base on their site which is relatively a bad indicator for the newbies trying to invest with them.
Miscellaneous information about Merrill Edge
Merrill Edge is an online investment platform offered by Merrill Lynch, which is now owned by Bank of America.
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