4 great free apps for investing and research

These investing apps deserve a look. Each offers unique and potentially useful services.

Robinhood

Investing

Once you link your bank account and find a stock you like, tap “Buy” and specify number of of shares. For now, you can only buy/sell U.S.-listed stocks and and ETFs; no mutual funds, bonds or options. Margin trading as well as an Android version expected to roll out later this year.

Acorns

Investing

Once linked to a bank account with a credit or debit card, Acorns rounds up purchases to the next dollar to invest the difference. When change adds up to $5, it is invested. To determine where it gets invested, the Acorns app asks questions to ascertain your investing style and goals. Then it recommends one of five portfolios, from conservative to aggressive.

StockTwits

Social

StockTwits is a full-fledged social media platform with more than 300,000 users. Users publish updates about markets and stocks while using so-called cashtags (dollar sign plus ticker symbol; e.g., $AAPL for Apple shares). The app aggregates user data in real time to determine which topics and investments are trending and gauge investor sentiment for individual stocks.

Openfolio

Social

Openfolio allows users to share their holdings within their circle by creating an investing “benchmark” — a group of investors to follow that can include trusted colleagues as well as professionals like Warren Buffett and Carl Icahn, whose portfolios are tracked from public sources. Holdings are in dollar amounts, so no one knows how much you are worth.