*Updated 2024
While in the past, 40% of people 18-34-year-olds felt like they didn’t have enough money to start investing, times and attitudes have changed. Today, the majority of millennials and Gen-Zers now feel like they are ready to invest – and Gen-Zers are actually starting to invest at an earlier age (19) than prior generations. Small-change investment apps like Acorns, Stash, Moneybox, and Robinhood, among others, each of which invests your money in small increments, provide people with alternative platforms through which to break into the stock market. Are these apps the future of investing, or is there reason to avoid them and stick with a broker?
Here are three reasons to take a chance on small-change investment apps, and three reasons why they aren’t worth your time.
Take a Chance on Small-Change Apps
Leveling the playing field
Small-change apps make investing accessible to everyone, without breaking the bank. Slightly over half (61%) of American households own stocks, with 84% of the market belonging to households that earn more than $100K or more. Investment apps allow anyone with a smartphone and some spare change to have a chance to grow their money. Unlike mutual funds, most of which often require a minimum investment of $500-$5,000, these apps let you allocate mere pennies towards your investments if that’s all you have to spare. For example, the celebrity-sponsored app Acorns allows people to mindlessly invest their spare change, by rounding credit card purchases up and investing the extra change across a number of stocks. Such apps provide a solution for lower-income Americans to save.
Steady saving wins the race
Small-change investment apps allow people to start saving earlier, and as is the case with most saving, time will grow your stash from small change into real money. Like Acorns, UK-based app Moneybox rounds up spare change from credit card purchases, saves it for you, and funnels it into investments. While small change sounds, well, small, let’s do the math. For example, say that the average user makes around 120 transactions per month and rounds up on average almost 40 cents per transaction. The small change adds up, as it’s nearly $48 saved each month and about $576 saved each year. Though not a significant enough amount of money to hurt your day-to-day dealings, over time, these investment apps will help your money will grow into something substantial.
Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity
In addition to not requiring a lot of money, these apps also take away the technical and bureaucratic processes involved with investing. You don’t need a four-year degree in finance to invest successfully with small-change apps. Many people don’t have time to properly sit and study the market, which is why these user-friendly apps do the work for you. Apps like Stash do research on companies that support causes you believe in, categorizing them for you and making it easy to choose in what to invest. Additionally, you can make automatic payments through these apps, enabling investing without a second thought.
Stick to what you know
Aversion to automation
Small-change apps often use algorithms and questionnaires to ascertain the level of their investors’ risk tolerance, and then proceed to invest the money accordingly. However, because this process is automated, many feel that the risk tolerance determined by the app may be inaccurate, leading to bad investment choices. While automated processes are often adept at detecting patterns (which is important for analyzing market trends), algorithms may not be as dependable when it comes to determining if those patterns are meaningful. This is where the human component would normally come in, but it’s missing from these apps. Investment already comes with risk, and using an automated, impersonal app rather than trading through a broker or financial adviser heightens this risk.
Limited investment choices
Small-change investment apps usually restrict you to specific stocks or Exchange-Traded Funds. For long-term investment goals, such restrictions could confine your options. Additionally, when your income stream eventually goes up, you may want to diversify your portfolio in ways that the apps won’t allow. Your money should be working for you; if there’s a time in your life when you suddenly have money to invest (like after your wedding, or when your company gave you a car and you sold yours…) then investing in small-change stocks isn’t for you.
Don’t take shortcuts
Illustrious investor Warren Buffet has long warned people to “never invest in a business you cannot understand.” He has advised to only invest in companies that you already know about, which is difficult to do with small-change apps that often invest in companies of their choosing. Depending on apps to do your work for you may be advantageous in the beginning but will hinder you from learning the craft of investing long term and learning how to make real money by investing independently. When the time comes for you to invest more than just your spare change, how will you know with which investments to start? Practice makes perfect, and investment apps won’t give you that chance.
The Bottom Line: What small-change investment apps provide in convenience and affordability, they may lack in variety and long-term gains. Would you use an app to invest?
