Review: Syfe Trade – Great For Dollar Cost Averaging, Free Trades, Limited Sign Up Promo (Up to S$70)!

There’s a new broker in town – a neobroker, actually – and it’s Syfe Trade. Brought to you from the people from Syfe, I have used this app for a while and have found it suitable for many people including myself. If you’re someone who just wants a no-frills, cheap, and simple way to invest, Syfe Trade is really compelling given its features and fees.

I love fractional trading!

Fractional trading is a feature that is so no-brainer I’m not sure why more stock trading platforms don’t support it. Instead of investing by number of shares, fractional trading lets you invest by the amount you desire.

For instance, Apple is around US$162 now, and if you have a budget of US$500, you would normally buy 3 shares on other platforms which comes to US$486, slightly below your budget. When Apple goes up to say US$175, you might still buy 3 shares of it which amounts to US$525. You end up investing more when the stock price is high, and investing less when it’s low; probably not something you want to do.

Syfe Trade lets you invest a flat US$500 instead, buying more shares when the stock price is lower, and fewer shares when the stock price is higher. This allows for more optimal dollar cost averaging.

It also allows for your capital outlay to be significantly lower since you can invest from US$1 (you might want to invest more due to fees, but more on that in the next paragraph). A single share of Amazon is almost USD$3,000 now, but Syfe Trade lets you invest any amount you wish to suit your investing budget. You could dollar cost average $500 each month into stocks with relatively high stock prices.

Fees are low, and there are free trades

The fees are reasonable and on the low side: US$1.49 per trade (US$0.99 per trade during the promo period until 31st March 2022). This means that you probably shouldn’t invest too small an amount even if fractional trading allows you to; I would suggest keeping it at least $200 and above so that fees don’t exceed more than 1% of your investment.

On top of the cheap fees, you get 2 free trades per month (5 during the promo period until 31st March 2022) which is a great deal. With a budget of say $1,000, you could easily invest $500 into one ETF, and the remaining $500 into another ETF, and pay no commission at all. Excellent deal, and coupled with fractional trading allows you to invest monthly very conveniently and cheaply (free, in fact).

Clean and simple user interface

Neobrokers are brokers that make trading more accessible to more people, and in my opinion the user interface is an extremely important factor for accessibility. Syfe Trade is excellent in this regard, and I really like the simple app which is barebones in a good way: I don’t find myself fighting against the user interface to get things done.

From finding shares to buying them, everything is quick, seamless, and user-friendly, and if all I want is to place a few quick trades to invest monthly, Syfe Trade’s app makes it a pleasant experience. Many other trading apps choke the interface full of charts, graphs, and numbers. Useful as those may be, it just feels cramped on a phone, and not really what I want if I just want to quickly dollar cost average into ETFs I am long on.

The app also gives some usual features like watchlists, news, stock suggestions (by sector, market view, and themes) etc, and they are all arranged nicely in the app. I’m particular about app interfaces on my iPhone and Syfe Trade meets my expectations on what I consider to be a well designed app.

Syfe Trade Promo Details (tap here for review)

Last updated: 18th June 2023

Activity	Reward
Sign up for Syfe Trade (use phone) with promo code SETHISFY	–
Fund minimum S$2,000 and place your first trade within 30 days of account creation	S$20 for new to Syfe customers

Use your smartphone and remember code SETHISFY

No desktop or tablet interface

Unfortunately, Syfe Trade is smartphone-only and does not offer a desktop or tablet interface. I sometimes wish to invest with a larger screen and it’s currently not possible with Syfe Trade.

On a lesser note, dark mode users may also gripe about the lack of a darkened user interface. The app is predominantly white and bright, which can be an issue since it’s likely to be used quite often at night owing that it is currently US-only.

US market only… for now

Speaking about it being US-only, that is another limitation of Syfe Trade; you can’t invest in other markets outside of the US. Other brokers offer a variety of markets like US, Hong Kong, Singapore, China etc, so hopefully Syfe Trade provides access to those markets soon. According to Syfe, Singapore’s SGX is currently in the works and I look forward to that.

Deposit is not instant

Every trading platform I’ve used so far allows me to deposit funds almost instantaneously, and this is not something that is present in Syfe Trade at the moment. I funded my account at 11PM and only got the funds credited sometime in the morning. This can be an issue because I tend to fund my trading accounts to buy stocks on an ad-hoc basis, and this can be a very time-sensitive affair particularly since the US market moves quite quickly.

Conclusion

Trading apps are the new wallet apps for me: the more the merrier. Competition is great and drives each player to up their features and/or compete on price. Sign-up promos are of course much welcomed, and I’ve come to use each platform for different themes: Syfe Trade will serve as my monthly dollar-cost averaging app into the US market, while moomoo is for my Apple investing, and Tiger Brokers for my speculative plays. Check those apps out too which come with really great sign-up promos.

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