J.P. Morgan Self-Directed Investing Review

Do you want to begin investing? 🎬

If you do, you’ll need a brokerage. And if you’re like most people, the entire ordeal ahead of you seems daunting, complicated, and full of uncertainty. 

After all, you’re taking a leap into a whole new world that you don’t quite understand. You’re not alone here—most of the numerous new investors entering the market are bound to feel this way.

Some stock brokerages offer simple services, but little in the way of guidance. Others are chock-full of features, but usually cost a fair bit more, and can be a bit too complicated for novices. J.P. Morgan Self-Directed Investing is firmly in the category of the former—a discount brokerage through and through. If the name doesn’t sound familiar, it might be because until recently, the brokerage was called Chase You Invest.

But is it any good? We’d say that it is—it offers a lot of features that beginners will appreciate, but it also has a few glaring flaws. Accessibility and being user-friendly were obviously the priorities here—and while the platform is somewhat lacking in educational material and pro-oriented features, you can educate yourself via other sources (like us), and powerful technical analysis features are something that you’ll only need after you get a few notches under your belt.

Those of you who are already clients of J.P. Morgan Wealth Management or simply want to begin investing should take a closer look at this broker. If you’re a bit more experienced or interested in anything other than buy-and-hold investing, you’d best look elsewhere.

Or if you are a part of the younger demographic (under 30) then J.P. Morgan might be the place for you as well. They are launching a new multichannel ad campaign that seems to be oriented towards the younger population.

J.P. Morgan Self-Directed Investing boasts low fees, a user-friendly platform, and a great offering as far as bonds are concerned. However, on the whole, this is a simple and rudimentary platform—lacking in advanced features. For existing J.P. Morgan Wealth Management customers, this platform is the easiest way to begin investing.

Fast Facts

• Account Minimum: $0
• Fees: Stocks: $0/trade; Options: $0/trade + $0.65/contract
• Best for: J.P. Morgan clients, beginners, investors interested in bonds
• Highlight: Affordability and user-friendly platform
• Bonus: Get up to $700 when you open and fund a new account*

Rating

• Usability: 8.5/10
• Research and Education: 6/10
• Customer Service & Help: 6/10
• Commissions & fees: 9/10
• Tools & Resources: 6/10
• Overall: 7/10

Visit J.P. Morgan on J.P. Morgan’s website

What is J.P. Morgan Self-Directed Investing?

J.P. Morgan’s Self-Directed Investing is J.P. Morgan’s low-cost foray into the world of stock brokerages. It’s easy to use, affordable, and the platform is quite user-friendly. However, this isn’t a powerful platform—it is lacking in research capabilities and educational material, and experienced investors will be left wanting more powerful features.

Nonetheless, if you’re already a J.P. Morgan Wealth Management customer, or simply looking to slowly ease your way into investing, this brokerage is a fantastic avenue.

On the whole, J.P. Morgan SDI is geared toward those who are already J.P. Morgan bank customers or beginner investors who are looking for a simple, easily accessible platform. Investors who need powerful research tools and have more experience will find the platform lacking—but it is a great fit for beginners.

The brokerage offers a very competitive fee schedule, has no account minimum, and offers a good blend of educational content. The offering of mutual funds and bonds is fantastic—although the availability of stocks and ETFs is slightly substandard.

Account Opening, Account Types, and Minimum Initial Deposit 👤

Opening an account with J.P. Morgan Self-Directed Investing is a piece of cake. The entire process is fully digital, and getting your account verified should only take a day. The registration process has 6 steps, and shouldn’t take you more than half an hour. During the account opening process, you’re going to have to provide proof of identity and residence.

This will require some basic information and documentation, such as your age, social security number, a document that provides proof of identity (such as a driver’s license, passport, or ID), and a bank statement or utility bill as proof of residence. The service currently offers three account types—an individual brokerage account (IBA), a traditional IRA account, and a Roth IRA account. Both of the IRA account types are also available as joint accounts.

The minimum initial deposit for all three account types is $0. There’s no barrier to entry here—and the addition of tax-advantaged retirement accounts such as IRAs are a welcome surprise. On the other hand, international clients will be disappointed—this service is only available to U.S. citizens.

Trading Platforms 🏛️

J.P. Morgan Self-Directed Investing has a single trading platform. It is web-based, and quite user-friendly, however, it also has a few significant drawbacks. But first, let’s start with the good.

The platform is well-designed and easy on the eye. However, as easy to use as it is, it is severely lacking in the customization department—what you see is what you get. The platform is available in English and Spanish, although the mobile app version of the platform is available only in English.

Speaking of the mobile app, it boasts many of the same advantages as the web-based platform. It’s convenient, easy to use, and has a biometric authentication feature—users can choose to bolster the security of their account with a fingerprint login or voice identification login. Unfortunately, two-step authentication is not available, and bonds cannot be traded via the mobile app.

Both platforms offer a good search function—nothing too spectacular, but it gets the job done. Unfortunately, you can’t set alerts or notifications—which is a major downside, particularly for active traders.

On top of that, the platforms lack a clear and easy-to-understand fee report. While trading costs are low overall with this brokerage, a little transparency would go a long way here. Additionally, the service lacks advanced order types—but the available order types should provide enough flexibility for novice investors.

Customer Support 📞

J.P. Morgan’s investing service has very weird customer service. That’s not a joke—and we don’t know how else to put it.

Although the customer service that you receive as a client is quick to respond and very helpful, there’s no email support or live chat option. You’re limited to secure messaging and calling them over the phone—and to make things even funkier, customer service isn’t available 24/7.

Instead of that, it is available from 7 AM to 11 PM Monday to Friday, and 10 AM to 7 PM on Saturday. The lack of 24/7 customer support, as well as the limited options in how you can approach J.P. Morgan’s customer service, means that we have to give this segment an unfavorable verdict—even though the CS team at J.P. Morgan is obviously very capable and committed.

You can also visit your local J.P. Morgan Bank branch and talk to a J.P. Morgan adviser or representative. However, most CS issues need to be resolved quickly, so this avenue of approach does little to sway our judgment. On the whole, we’d like to see some improvements in this area—with better infrastructure, the brokerage’s customer service would be completely satisfactory. 

Investment Selection 🎯

Although it should be enough to provide beginners with plenty of diversity, the investment offerings are average overall. But that’s a general statement—let’s look at the specifics.

As far as stocks and ETFs go, this brokerage’s offering is subpar. Investors can trade approximately 5000 stocks and 2000 ETFs—which is far less than what most of the top discount brokerages offer.

However, the situation is a bit brighter when it comes to mutual funds and bonds. J.P. Morgan’s Self-Directed Investing service offers clients access to approximately 3500 mutual funds from 60 different fund providers, and 22,000 types of bonds. Although bonds might not seem like an appealing choice, they are a key component of a well-diversified portfolio—and bond yields often rise due to auspicious economic news.

However, the brokerage doesn’t allow clients to purchase fractional shares—something that would be very helpful for novice investors. Penny stock trading is also not supported, and there is no after-hours trading feature. You should also keep in mind that while the availability of mutual funds is decent, competitors like Charles Schwab still have an edge over J.P. Morgan’s service.

On top of that, most of the securities provided by J.P. Morgan’s Self-Directed Investing service are US-based—meaning that if you’re interested in foreign markets or geographic diversification, you should probably look elsewhere. We should also mention that futures aren’t available for trading via the mobile app. On the other hand, the brokerage has recently added cryptocurrency to the list of available assets, which is particularly appealing due to the rapid growth of the cryptocurrency market.

J.P. Morgan Fees 💰

On the whole, J.P. Morgan Self-Directed Investing has pretty low fees. There’s no minimum initial deposit, no inactivity fee, no account maintenance fees, and the brokerage offers unlimited commission-free trades for stocks and ETFs. A $0.65 fee is charged per options contract, but this is still pretty affordable. On the other hand, beginners should probably stay away from options—and there are many cheaper brokerages that focus on options trading.

Trading fees are low, non-trading fees are low, but clients might be charged a small amount in transaction fees. These amount to little more than a couple of cents for every $1,000 that you invest, however, so these charges are completely negligible.

However, there are a few fees associated with this brokerage—but you’re unlikely to incur them by accident. A $75 fee is charged for account transfers, and $25 for broker-assisted trades—but these are pretty standard and transparent fees.

While we’re on the topic on fees, we should mention that J.P. Morgan Self-Directed Investing does not offer margin trading. If you’re a J.P. Morgan bank customer, you won’t be charged for bank transfers—however, if you’re a client of a different bank, every ACH transfer or wire transfer will set you back $25.

Educational Resources 📘

J.P. Morgan SDI’s educational offering is fantastic when it comes to video material and educational articles. The videos are well-produced and informative, while the written content covers a wide range of topics—from the basics like budgeting and asset classes to tax filing and more complex topics.

The brokerage also gives clients access to easy-to-understand and concise market commentary, which does a great job of helping novices make sense of the complexities of the stock market. J.P. Morgan SDI also has a helpful FAQ page, great summaries for all written content, and a handy glossary page.

That’s good—now, let’s move on to the not-so-good. First of all, the broker lacks a demo account. This isn’t a complex feature to integrate, and is more or less standard practice nowadays—so we hope that this will change soon.

However, as it stands at the time of this article being written, there’s no way to test-drive the brokerage and its platform without opening a real account. While that is the first and biggest flaw as far as education goes, it isn’t the only one.

Seeing as how this is a brokerage that is obviously geared toward novices, we were a bit disappointed to see that there are no platform tutorial videos available. Although the platform is well-designed and user-friendly like we mentioned before, a few tutorial videos and access to demo accounts would go a long way in making this brokerage even more accessible.

J.P. Morgan Tools and Research 🔬

As far as research goes, the highpoint of J.P. Morgan SDI is the stock screener. It’s easy to use and allows you to sort investments by asset class, market cap, performance, and sector. Fundamental data is available on most securities—however, this only includes very basic information such as beta, P/E ratio, and market cap.

The brokerage does offer detailed analyses of some of the biggest US companies (think Apple, Amazon, or Tesla), but that does little to offset the small amount of information that is available when looking at the bigger picture.

As far as funds go, the brokerage offers Morningstar ratings. Although they provide you with a basic overview of a fund’s performance, most of the best discount brokerages offer full Morningstar reports.

The brokerage also offers clients access to a newsfeed by Comtex. Although it is easily digestible and easy to navigate, it lacks visual elements such as stock charts.

When it comes to charting tools, J.P. Morgan SDI has 21 technical indicators. Although this should be enough to satisfy beginners, it is very basic and limited—especially when you consider that there are no technical drawing tools.

Although it doesn’t qualify as “research” per se, J.P. Morgan SDI’s portfolio builder tool helps to fill the gap left by the lack of other research and trading ideas. Available to clients with over $2,500 invested, the portfolio builder tool gives you a recommended asset allocation based on a simple questionnaire that deals with your risk tolerance and goals.

Advantages 📈

The pricing and accessibility of J.P. Morgan SDI simply can’t be beaten. With a $0 account minimum and unlimited $0 stock and ETF trades, this brokerage allows you to begin investing no matter what your current financial state might be.

In a similar vein, the brokerage is extremely user-friendly. The platform interfaces are simple, crisp, and intuitive—there’s no clutter to be found, and you won’t be overwhelmed when you start trading.

Put those two factors together and you’re left with a platform that has all the prerequisites to compete with the top brokerages for beginners. However, there are some disadvantages that cannot be ignored…

Disadvantages 📉

The investment offerings that J.P. Morgan SDI has are decent for beginners—when it comes to mutual funds and bonds. However, the offering of ETFs and stocks is subpar—and although this won’t prove to be a problem for beginners, it might prove an issue for more experienced investors.

Although the Morningstar ratings are a welcome addition, the brokerage offers little in the way of research other than the most basic fundamental data. Charting tools are lacking, and although the portfolio builder tool is neat, it requires a minimum balance of $2,500 and offers rudimentary portfolio building for that asking price.

Accessibility and user-friendliness aside, customer service is an important part of the overall equation when looking at a brokerage. Even the simplest and most reliable platform will run into issues—and seeing as how this is one obviously geared toward beginners, a helping hand is all the more important.

The customer service that this brokerage provides simply doesn’t meet the mark. We hope to see improvements in this area, as this would completely solve a glaring issue, and round out this brokerage as a fantastic choice for beginners.

Conclusion 🏁

J.P. Morgan’s Self-Directed Investing service is a tough little nut to crack. It’s incredibly accessible, quite user-friendly, and there’s no denying that the low fees are very enticing.

However, it falls flat and quite short of the competition in quite a few key areas. With a basic platform, a limited offering of investments, strangely-conceived customer service, and rudimentary research and charting tools, there’s a lot of room for improvement here. 

And we’d really like to see that improvement come to fruition—because there’s a lot of potential here, even if it is hidden beneath the surface. However, this brokerage is still a newcomer to the game—so we’re willing to give them some leeway.

About the author

Tim Fries

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Tim Fries is the cofounder of The Tokenist. He has a B. Sc. in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Michigan, and an MBA from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. Tim served as a Senior Associate on the investment team at RW Baird's US Private Equity division, and is also the co-founder of Protective Technologies Capital, an investment firm specializing in sensing, protection and control solutions.