Moomoo Review 2024: Pros, Cons and How It Compares
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Our Take
4.7
The bottom line:
Pros & Cons
Pros
Commission-free stock, ETF and options trades.
No contract fee on equity options.
Popular, easy-to-use app.
High yield on uninvested cash.
Low margin rates.
Cons
No mutual funds or bonds.
Lower than average execution quality.
Compare to Similar Brokers
NerdWallet rating 4.8 /5 | NerdWallet rating 5.0 /5 | NerdWallet rating 4.6 /5 |
Fees $0 per online equity trade | Fees $0.005 per share; as low as $0.0005 with volume discounts | Fees $0 |
Account minimum $0 | Account minimum $0 | Account minimum $0 |
Promotion None no promotion available at this time | Promotion Exclusive! U.S. residents who open a new IBKR Pro account will receive a 0.25% rate reduction on margin loans. Terms apply. | Promotion Earn up to $10,000 when you transfer your investment portfolio to Public. |
Learn more on Charles Schwab's website | Learn more on Interactive Brokers' website | Learn more on Public's website |
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Full Review
Where Moomoo shines
Free equity options trades: Moomoo is one of the few brokers that charges neither a commission nor a per-contract fee on equity options trades. Index options have a $0.50 per-contract fee, but even that's on the lower end among brokers we review.
Streamlined mobile app: Moomoo has clearly put a lot of effort into its mobile experience. Signup is a breeze, and the trading interface is intuitive, without skimping on features that will appeal to advanced traders.
Where Moomoo falls short
No mutual funds or individual bonds: Moomoo offers ETFs, including bond ETFs, but if you want specific mutual funds or individual bonds in your portfolio, you'll have to look elsewhere.
No IRAs or retirement planning tools: Moomoo isn't really made for retirement-oriented investors. The broker does not offer IRAs (only taxable brokerage accounts), nor does it have any built-in retirement planning tools such as calculators.
Alternatives to consider:
For mutual funds and bonds: Charles Schwab, Firstrade
For retirement planning: FidelityMerrill Edge
What type of investor should choose Moomooo?
Options traders: Moomoo's free options contracts on stocks, and very-low-cost options contract fee on indexes, make it one of the cheapest brokers we review in terms of options trading costs.
Margin traders: Most brokers we review offer tiered margin rates based on account balance or account type — but Moomoo offers a flat rate of 6.8% to all users. That will appeal to margin traders — especially those with smaller accounts, which may not have a sufficient balance to earn comparably low rates elsewhere.
International investors: Moomoo is a multinational broker, and offers its services to investors in several countries.
What the Nerds think 🤓
Sam Taube, lead investing writer
"Moomoo has one of the smoothest account signup processes of any broker we review. You can simply download the app and let it walk you through an account application, one question at a time — and then seamlessly link a bank account through Plaid.
There's a lot to like about the trading experience as well, especially for advanced traders. Moomoo gives you a richly featured trading interface that includes charts, various statistics and a variety of order types and options. The only downside is that this volume of information might feel slightly overwhelming for beginner investors. The app is protected by a passcode system for quick and secure logins, which is a plus."
Moomoo at a glance
Account minimum | $0. |
Stock trading costs | $0. |
Options trades | $0 for equity options. $0.50 per-contract fee for index options. |
Account fees (annual, transfer, closing, inactivity) | No annual or inactivity fees. $75 ACAT outgoing transfer fee (full or partial). |
Interest rate on uninvested cash | Over 4%, but must opt in. |
Tradable securities | Stocks, ETFs, options, American Depositary Receipts, fractional shares. Bonds only available in the form of bond ETFs. |
Number of no-transaction-fee mutual funds | Not available. |
Trading platform | Mobile platform has a smooth signup process and trading experience that is oriented toward advanced traders. Desktop, web and API platforms also available. |
Mobile app | Available for iOS and Android. Easy-to-use; earns more than 4.5 stars on both app stores. |
Research and data | Nasdaq Level II data, NYSE data, news and research from TipRanks, Bloomberg, Morningstar, Benzinga, Dow Jones, MT Newswire and other sources. |
Customer support options (includes how easy it is to find key details on the website) | 24/7 chat and email support. Phone support available from 8:30 a.m. ET to 4:30 p.m. Eastern time, Monday - Friday. |
How to sign up for a Moomoo account
We tested out Moomoo's signup process through its mobile app, which walks you through the account application process, one question at a time. It's one of the smoothest signup experiences among brokers we review. You'll need to provide them with some basic information, such as your Social Security number. Once you've completed the application and funded your account, you'll be ready to trade.
Moomoo says that it offers instant buying power — that is, users can trade as soon as they initiate a deposit, without waiting for funds to settle — but this may not apply to the initial deposit upon opening an account. We had to wait a couple of days for funds to settle before we started trading.
What to know about Moomoo's fees
Moomoo has no account minimum, annual fee or inactivity fee. It charges a fee of $75 for partial or full outbound ACAT transfers (i.e., transferring investments from Moomoo to another broker), which is a fairly standard fee among brokers we review.
U.S. stocks (both exchange-listed and over-the-counter) are completely free to trade on Moomoo, as are equity options. Index options have a $0.50 per-contract fee, and American Depositary Receipts (i.e., foreign stocks) have a commission of $0.01 to $0.05 per share.
Moomoo charges $10 for broker-assisted trades. That's less than what many other brokers we review charge for a phone call with a human broker, although a few brokers offer this service for free.
Moomoo's trading platforms and apps
Moomoo's mobile app combines a sleek, easy-to-use interface with lots of features that will appeal to advanced traders, including charts, statistics and a variety of different order types. It's popular on the app stores; both the iOS and Android versions have average star ratings of more than 4.5. That's fairly rare among the stock apps we review.
How we nerd out testing trading platforms
Our reviewers — who are writers and editors on NerdWallet’s content team — test every online broker platform in our analysis hands-on. That way, we can report on every aspect of the user experience, from funding a new account to placing trades.
We score each broker against criteria that factor in the capabilities offered and the actual user experience of trading with those capabilities. This includes how easy it was to sign up for and fund a new account. Note that a broker may score very highly for the platforms it offers but low for the experience of actually using that platform. Our analysis scores these criteria separately and weighs them evenly when factored into the broker’s overall score. As a result, a broker can offer an advanced trading platform. Still, if it is clunky to use or the process of opening an account is unnecessarily arduous, their score will reflect that.
Moomoo also offers a web trading platform via a TradingView integration, and a desktop platform, plus APIs. These all give investors access to markets during Moomoo's extended trading hours, which run from 4:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. Eastern time, Monday through Friday.
One standout feature about Moomoo's trading platform is its flat margin interest rate of 6.8%. There are a few other brokers we review that offer comparably-low margin rates, but most have a tiered margin system in which you need a hefty account balance to get single-digit rates. Moomoo charges the same rate to all users.
Moomoo's investment selection
Moomoo offers access to U.S. stocks (including exchange-listed stocks, OTC stocks and IPOs), foreign stocks, ETFs and options. Mutual funds aren't available, nor are individual bonds, although Moomoo users can still diversify into fixed-income securities via bond ETFs.
Users can buy fractional shares of select stocks and ETFs, subject to a $5 minimum. Some brokers don't offer fractional shares at all, but Moomoo is at a disadvantage to several other brokers that offer fractional share trading on all stocks, with no minimums.
Other key Moomoo features
Research and data
Investors get access to NYSE and Nasdaq Level II market data through Moomoo, as well as news and research from Bloomberg, Morningstar and other providers.
Customer support
Moomoo offers 24/7 chat and email support, as well as phone support from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Eastern time, Monday through Friday. It also has a large bank of educational articles, videos, courses and tutorials, and a fairly easy-to-navigate website.
Cash management
As of this writing, investors who opt in can earn a yield of over 4% per year on up to $1 million in uninvested cash at Moomoo, which is on the higher end among brokers we review. A current promotion pays new users an extra 3.5% per year on up to $20,000 in uninvested cash — a total yield of 8.1% on that amount — for three months.
Good to know about Moomoo
Execution quality
Moomoo says that 95.58% of its orders are executed at the National Best Bid and Offer (NBBO) price or better. That's lower than the average execution quality among brokers we review. Moomoo itself does not accept payment for order flow (PFOF), but Moomoo says that its clearing broker, Futu Clearing, which is owned by the same company as Moomoo, "may receive payment for order flow or rebates."
Payment for order flow is an arrangement in which brokers route customer orders through trading firms for execution, in exchange for payment. The trading firms then use the customer order data to inform their own trading decisions. For most investors, the effects of PFOF are negligible, but PFOF may result in slightly slower executions or worse prices than you'd get at a non-PFOF broker. This may be a significant disadvantage for high-volume day traders.
The average execution quality of all brokers we review was 96.95% as of Oct. 16, 2024. That means 96.95% of orders sold for at a price that was at or better than the National Best Bid and Offer. Executing at or above the NBBO means you may receive a price improvement or a better share price than you were originally quoted.
Is Moomoo safe?
All investing comes with a risk of loss, but Moomoo carries Securities Investor Protection Corporation (SIPC) insurance that protects up to $500,000 per account (up to $250,000 in cash) in the event of broker insolvency.
Moomoo is also regulated by the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority.
Is Moomoo right for you?
Moomoo isn't a retirement-oriented broker. But if you're not looking for IRAs, mutual funds, bonds or planning tools, it offers one of the smoothest app experiences of any broker we review, low (often zero) options trading costs, and low margin rates for all. If you're in search of a mobile platform to up your trading game, Moomoo may be exactly what you're looking for.
