5.3 KiB
Directory of US brokerage firms
Whitelist
The following brokerages have no significant ethical issues:
| brokerage | sensitive info exposed to CloudFlare | supported CISPA | ALEC member | forced drug testing of staff | notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| E*Trade | n | y | n | n | covers: Canada, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Japan, United Kingdom, and United States; funding bonus ($5k=>$50; $10k=>$100; $20k=>$150) |
| Greenvest | n | n | n | n | RIRA; min. investment to avoid fees: $100k; B corp |
| InteractiveBrokers | n | n | n | n | min. investment to avoid fees: $100k per account; has a "impact" feature to analyze the portfolio's ESG factors w.r.t. the user's ethical views; covers Australia, Belgium, Canada, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Netherlands, Singapore, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, United Kingdom, and United States; website is partially Tor-hostile but the site can be avoided for most operations after sign-up |
| Rich Uncles | n | n | n | n | Real estate investing only |
| Vanguard | n | n | n | y |
Graylist
These brokerages would normally be blacklisted, but due to the short whitelist they are set aside as a less evil compromize. They should still be avoided if possible.
The ethical problem with TD Ameritrade is that Charles Schwab is the primary owner, and Schwab is a bad company to support. But Schwab is not involved in the highly controversial financing that other large banks are, so we gray list it. The other brokerage firms are hosted on Amazon AWS. If that's their sole ethical problem, they are gray listed. Amazon is behind countless evils. It's paramount to boycott Amazon for anyone who cares about human rights, privacy, or the environment. Amazon also has had several data breaches-- Capital One, Juspay, Swiggy, etc., so it's a bad idea to trust custodians who use AWS with the security of your money.
| brokerage | sensitive info exposed to CloudFlare | supported CISPA | ALEC member | forced drug testing of staff | notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Janus Henderson | n | n | n | n | Amazon AWS-hosted; |
| nvstr | n | n | n | n | Amazon AWS-hosted; maintenance fee: $4/month; promos: $15-150 for funding, random bonus awards, referral bonuses |
| Robinhood | n | n | n | n | Amazon AWS-hosted; They may have used CloudFlare in the past but apparently that changed. |
| Stash | n | n | n | n | Amazon AWS-hosted; no mutual funds; no options; no crypto; maintenance fee: $1/month |
| tastyworks | n | n | n | n | Amazon AWS-hosted; TIRA; RIRA; no forex; no crypto; no non-US stocks; open/close fee= $0/0; commission=$5/stock trade (closing trades gratis), $1/option trade; promo: funding (100 shares [$1-6ea, avg:$200-220]), referral=$75 |
| TD Ameritrade | n | n | n | n | Majority owned by Charles Schwab, a bank that supports republicans, CISPA, drug tests their staff, and treats Tor users with hostility. |
| TradeStation | n | n | n | n | Amazon AWS-hosted; crypto; min. invest=$500 ($2k for bonus); open/close fee= $0/0; commission=$0.50/option trade; commission=$0-5/stock trade |
| Webull | n | n | n | n | Amazon AWS-hosted; TIRA; RIRA; crypto; no forex |
Blacklist
These brokerages have severe ethical or trust issues and should be boycotted.
| brokerage | sensitive info exposed to CloudFlare | supported CISPA | ALEC member | forced drug testing of staff | notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ally | n | y | n | n | whole site is Tor-hostile (403 error) |
| Axos Invest | y | n | n | n | Amazon AWS-hosted; Axos Bank is jailed in CloudFlare and Axos Invest will be soon. Investors who get blocked by that will have to pay $5/month for paper statements. |
| Betterment | n | n | n | n | Imposes hCAPTCHA just to read the landing page. They censor posts in their Reddit sub that complains about this instead of offering support. |
| Ellevest | y | n | n | n | |
| Euro Pacific Capital | y | n | n | n | |
| FUTU | n | n | n | n | support.fututrade.com is CloudFlared; no web app; mobile app is GPS-iOS-only; desktop is Mac/Windows only |
| Finhabits | n | n | n | n | B corp; Hosted on Google Cloud; outsources to Apex; uses Equifax for address verification |
| Firstrade | n | n | n | n | whole site is Tor-hostile (468 error) |
| Fundrise | n | n | n | n | Amazon AWS-hosted; Unavoidable CAPTCHAs |
| Gatsby | n | n | n | n | no web app; no desktop app; mobile app is GPS-iOS-only |
| Lightspeed | y | n | n | n | |
| M1 Finance | y | n | n | n | They censor posts in their Reddit sub that expose the risks of passing sensitive financial data through CloudFlare. |
| Merrill Edge | n | n | n | y | Owned by one of the most evil banks in the world (Bank of America) |
| Prudential | n | y | y | y | |
| Siebert | y | n | n | n | |
| SoFi | y | n | n | n | They censor posts in their Reddit sub that expose the risks of passing sensitive financial data through CloudFlare. |
| Sogotrade | y | n | n | n | |
| Stockpile | y | n | n | n | |
| TIAA-CREF | n | n | n | n | Whole site is Tor-hostile |
| Tradingblock | y | n | n | n | |
| Wealthfront | n | n | n | n | Registration imposes Google reCAPTCHA |
| Wealthsimple | y | n | n | n | |
| Wellstrade | n | y | n | y | Owned by Wells Fargo, an evil bank. |
| Zackstrade | y | n | n | n |