Acorns For Non-U.S. Residents
Acorns does not allow non-U.S. residents, including EU citizens and expatriates, to open accounts.
Alternatives to Acorns For Non-U.S. Residents
If you're not a U.S. citizen but want to invest in stocks and other securities on U.S. exchanges,
you can set up a brokerage account with Firstrade.
Free Firstrade Account
Visit Firstrade Website
Firstrade vs Acorns Overview
Should Millennials choose a brokerage firm designed for them, like Acorns? Or should they go with
a regular discount broker like Firstrade? Let’s have a look.
Pricing
| Broker Fees |
Stock/ETF
Commission |
Mutual Fund
Commission |
Options
Commission |
Maintenance
Fee |
Annual IRA
Fee |
|
Firstrade
|
$0
|
$0
|
$0 per contract
|
$0
|
$0
|
|
Acorns
|
na
|
na
|
na
|
$3, $5, or $9 per month
|
$3, $5, or $9 per month
|
Promotion Links
Acorns:
Get $20 when you open an Acorns account with this referral link.
Firstrade: Get 2% IRA match and up to $250 in transfer fee rebate.
First, Let’s Examine Available Products
Firstrade is a typical online discount brokerage firm. As such, it has a decent list of tradable securities. Here they are:
- Mutual funds
- Stocks
- Exchange-traded funds
- Closed-end funds
- Option contracts
- Fixed-income assets, including brokered CD’s
The equity category includes both penny stocks and OTC stocks.
Here is Acorns’ list:
Even worse is the fact that Acorns only has twelve funds. Remarkably, this is an increase. In the past, it only offered six.
Winner: Firstrade
Next, Let’s Look at Investment Methods
Firstrade provides self-directed trading services only. The brokerage firm has no managed accounts, either in robo or old-school format. So you’ll need to know what you’re doing before diving in head first with the broker’s list of tradable assets.
Acorns is the exact opposite of Firstrade. It has no self-directed accounts. Instead, it offers robo investing. Acorns has a software program that makes all trading decisions for its clients. Obviously, if you know nothing about investing, this will appear as the better option. But as we already mentioned, Acorns’ robot can only buy and sell twelve funds.
On the flip side, Acorns has round-up and bonus programs. Acorns customers earn free deposits into their investment accounts when they shop online or in stores.
One other point needs to be made here: Firstrade charges no monthly fees for its accounts; while Acorns clients have to pay $3, $5, or $9 per month, depending on the exact services chosen.
Winner: Tie
Third, We Need to Scrutinize Trading Tools
Firstrade is a budget firm, so it doesn’t have a desktop platform. It also doesn’t provide a browser-based trading system. It does offer a decent website, though. The crown jewel is a trade bar at the bottom of the browser. It has the following features:
- Limit, stop, and trailing orders
- Several duration choices, such as GT90 (good for 90 days)
- Extended-hours trading
- Special orders, such as on-the-open
Options can be traded on the tool, but bonds and mutual funds must be traded on web pages.
Acorns has no trade bar, no charting, and no platform of any kind. We did mention it has no self-directed accounts of any kind, didn’t we? So this shouldn’t be surprising. But the broker does have a user-friendly website with good management tools that track and analyze the performance of an account.
Winner: Firstrade
Fourth, It’s Fund Resources
Firstrade’s website hosts a lot of fund materials and tools. For example, we found screeners for mutual and exchange-traded funds. A scan can be performed using many search criteria, including:
- Price/Trailing Earnings
- Morningstar Rating 10-Year
- Sector Weightings
- Tax Cost Ratio 1 Year
Fund profiles are simply Morningstar clones, although they actually use the analyst’s old format before its most recent update. This may or may not be an advantage, depending on what information you’re looking for. Morningstar’s most recent update still retains a lot of information, although the older format has more. Analyst reports from Morningstar are free at Firstrade.
Although Acorns offers twelve ETFs, it doesn’t provide any in-depth fund research like Firstrade.
Winner: Firstrade
And Don’t Forget Banking Tools
Acorns customers can attach a discrete checking account (there are no checks, however) to an existing brokerage account. The cost for this is $3 per month. In return, the brokerage house offers unlimited ATM fee refunds, which sounds like a pretty good deal to us. On the downside, Acorns imposes a $500 daily withdrawal limit on its ATM card.
For a $0 monthly fee, Firstrade customers can add both checks and a Visa debit card to an existing brokerage account. However, the firm requires a $25,000 account balance to do this, which sounds pretty steep to us. The debit card has a $1,000 daily ATM limit with no fee refunds.
Winner: Draw
Lastly, Miscellaneous Services
Dividend Reinvestment Program: Both brokers offer free dividend reinvesting.
IRAs: Both firms have Individual Retirement Accounts.
Automatic Mutual Fund Investing: Firstrade has it for free.
Winner: Firstrade
Now, Our Recommendations
Beginners: Acorns.
Retirement Savers and Long-Term Investors: Firstrade has target-date mutual funds and other retirement accounts besides IRAs.
ETF and Stock Trading: Firstrade of course.
Small Accounts: Firstrade.
Round-Up Investing: Acorns clients could save a monthly fee by not rounding purchases up and keeping the change in their bank accounts. Then, at the end of the month, they could do one transfer into a Firstrade account and buy a mutual fund that has no minimum investment amount. There is no charge for the transfer and no charge for the mutual fund purchase, either.
Firstrade vs Acorns - Outcome
For hands-off investing, Acorns easily beats Firstrade. But for other types of trading, Firstrade
is the broker of choice.
Updated on 7/2/2024.
Chad Morris is a financial writer with more than 20 years experience
as both an English teacher and an avid trader. When he isn’t writing
expert content for Brokerage-Review.com, Chad can usually be found
managing his portfolio or building a new home computer.
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