6 Tips and Tricks for Getting the Most from M1 Finance – Modest Money

M1 Finance is an investment platform designed to make the process of building a portfolio and creating a strong financial future easy. This roboadvisor does most of the heavy lifting for you, even if you are completely new to investing. Just to create an account with M1 Finance is not enough to get the most from the platform.

In our M1 Finance review, we discussed some of the nifty features we loved at Modest Money. In this guide, we are going to provide some additional tips and guidance on how to get the most from M1 Investing.

1. Never Try to Use Short-Term Trading Strategies

The Internet is awash with short-term trading strategies with promises of making millions with very little effort. Any experienced investor will tell you that the vast majority of short-term traders lose everything in a short space of time.

With M1 Finance, you can enter buy and sell orders at any time, but this is not the live stock market. Most users have one trading window per day, where M1 will initiate your orders. This trading window is 9 am from Monday to Friday, with subscribers gaining access to an additional afternoon trading window.

For this reason, we strongly advise against trying to implement short-term trading strategies on this platform.

2. Take Advantage of Fractional Shares

In our review on M1 Finance, we touched upon how the platform enables investors to put their money into fractional shares. In a nutshell, if you cannot afford one full share, M1 will allow you to put what is essentially a share of a share.

These cannot be typically bought on the open market, which is why it is such a powerful feature. Most traditional brokerages don’t allow their investors to buy fractional shares.

It’s such a strong option because it allows every single dollar to be put to work, rather than letting it sit around until you come up with the money to purchase a full share in your favorite company.

3. Don’t Be Afraid to Create a Lot of Pies

M1 pies are what the platform has become known for. Every slice is a different asset, whether a stock, ETF, or bond. Slices of pies may also consist of other pies. Mix and match to create the fully diversified portfolio you want.

M1 Investing doesn’t restrict its users in how many pies they can create. M1 Finance pies can be chopped and changed to form the ideal portfolio, and you can alter them at any time.

4. Educate Yourself on Investing with M1 Finance

Even though the M1 roboadvisor is mainly about automating and simplifying the process of investing, you should still learn as much as you can about the markets.

Many new users overlook the fact that M1 has committed to educating ordinary people about investing and how the markets work. Did you know that two-thirds of Americans cannot even pass a basic financial literary test?

Download the free 100-page guide on investing by M1 Finance. It’s an easy read geared towards those who are getting started with planning for the future.

5. Use Dividend Reinvestment to Increase Your Returns

Many companies choose to pay out shareholder dividends from their profits. Dividends make a stock more attractive, and many investors select them due to their ability to generate a passive income. Whether you invest in baskets of stocks or individual stocks, the chances are you will receive some dividends.

Rather than letting them linger in your investment account or withdrawing them, consider using M1’s automatic dividend reinvestment scheme to buy more shares in your chosen company.

Over the years, you will build up your holdings, which will also multiply your dividends. For even better results, combine dividend reinvestment with purchasing fractional shares.

6. Use Bonds for Liquidation

Government bonds are the most conservative type of investment available. They offer little growth, but they are a guaranteed, low-risk investment over the years.

Unless you are coming towards retirement, or you are extremely risk-averse, we recommend holding some bonds so you can easily liquidate them for cash.

Bonds are relatively non-volatile and offer easy access to cash in an emergency.

Contrast your bonds to stocks, where the latter may experience a market crash and leave you with less liquidity than you expected.

Keep a separate M1 pie for bonds and use a fraction of your portfolio for it. The focus should always be chiefly on stocks and ETFs, so you can get the growth you need to overcome annual inflation figures.

The Bottom Line

Smart investors will take the time to study all the available features offered by their brokerage, even with a roboadvisor.

M1 Finance offers a collection of features that empower investors to multiply their returns and provide themselves with regular growth to help them accomplish their life goals.

If you want to create an account with M1 Finance and invest for free, now has never been a better time. To get started, click on the Modest Money link now.