Who Should Choose Merrill Edge?
Both beginners and experienced investors will find things to like about Merrill Edge, such as quality research and decent investment tools. That being said, when compared to other online brokerages, Merrill Edge’s tools are hardly top-shelf offerings, and the platform has some significant downsides.
The limited selection of product offerings is our main concern with Merrill Edge. Day traders and more experienced investors might prefer a platform with more robust trading capabilities and advanced order types, like conditional orders.
Merrill Edge would be best for investors who are narrowly focused on basic investments, like stocks, exchange-traded funds (ETFs) and mutual funds. One of the platform’s advantages is that it does not take payment for order flow—although we feel that has more to do with its status as Bank of America’s core brokerage offering, rather than a choice designed to attract day traders looking to avoid front-running by market makers.
Bank of America gives its existing customers a few reasons to choose Merrill Edge. They can access their bank accounts, loans and investments all from the same website, and having high balances across all Bank of America-affiliated accounts can qualify them for better rates on financial products.
Merrill Edge Commissions and Fees
Like the rest of the online brokerage industry, Merrill Edge offers unlimited, commission-free trading of stocks, ETFs and options. It also features commission-free trading of certain mutual funds and fixed income investments.
Merrill Edge charges a few transaction fees: $0.65 per contract for options trades and a $19.95 commission per mutual fund transaction (beyond the list of commission-free funds, which incur a $39.95 redemption fee if sold within 90 days of purchase). There’s no fee for brokered CDs and Treasuries, but it costs $1 per bond to buy corporate bonds, municipal bonds and other secondary investments ($10 minimum, $250 maximum cost). If you request help from a Merrill Edge broker, it will cost $29.95 per transaction.
If you choose to open a margin account, Merrill Edge charges 8.6% to borrow up to $25,000 and 7.5% to borrow between $25,000 and $100,000. They request you call to hear their rates for borrowing more than $100,000. These margin rates are on the high side of brokers in our survey.
In terms of other account fees, Merrill Edge ranked about average in our study. There’s no minimum balance requirement, no account inactivity fees and no fee for a forced margin sellout. On the other hand, they charge $49.95 for a full account transfer out of your balance, $24.95 for outgoing wires and $30 for a voluntary security reorganization.
Merrill Edge Platform and Technology
In many ways, the Merrill Edge MarketPro desktop trading platform resembles similar offerings from other brokers, designed to meet the needs of experienced investors. You can customize your MarketPro dashboard with charts, tables and tools, including watch lists that monitor up to 178 different investment statistics. You can save up 25 different dashboard layouts, and if you don’t want to build one yourself the platform offers pre-baked layouts.
The desktop platform provides a good range of investment tools such as:
- Advanced charting with access to over 104 technical indicators.
- Options analysis, including the OptionsPlay tool to test strategies before entering a trade.
- Level II quotes from Nasdaq to get more insight into the details of size and price of current trading action.
However, MarketPro falls short compared to similar platforms for day trading in that there are no one-click trades to respond rapidly to changing markets, and no option to set up conditional orders. These are major shortcomings for active traders.
Merrill Edge also offers a web-based platform and a mobile app. The web-based platform doesn’t offer the same research tools and capabilities of MarketPro, but it displays your portfolio, allows you to make basic trades and access some research resources. One interesting capability is their Dynamic Insights tool, which is AI-driven and gives you a personalized summary of how your portfolio is doing, including possible recommendations.
The Merrill Edge mobile app lets you make trades on your mobile device. It features a customizable dashboard, charting, research, watch lists and planning tools. All features are available for Android and iPhone users, but several are not ready for iPad users.
Merrill Edge Range of Offerings
Merrill Edge’s range of offerings includes the standard lineup of stocks, ETFs, mutual funds, bonds and options. It also offers a sustainable investing screener listing investments that specifically meet environmental, social, or governance (ESG) characteristics.
This online brokerage does not offer a broad range of more advanced assets, however. There is no access to cryptocurrency, foreign exchange (forex) or futures trading. For stocks, there is no access to international markets or penny stocks. Last, there is no fractional share trading, so you can only buy a stock if you can afford a full share.
Merrill Edge offers a cash management account to hold your uninvested cash. Cash in this program earns interest, and you can access it by debit card and checks. You can also set up automatic sweeps, which checks your investment account for idle cash and moves it into the cash management account.
| Product | Available? |
|---|---|
|
Stocks
|
Yes
|
|
ETFs
|
Yes
|
|
Mutual Funds
|
Yes
|
|
Bonds
|
Yes
|
|
Options
|
Yes
|
|
Futures
|
No
|
|
Forex
|
No
|
|
International Markets
|
No
|
|
Penny Stocks
|
No
|
|
Advisory Services
|
Yes
|
|
Cryptocurrency
|
No
|
|
Fractional Shares
|
No
|
|
Cash Management Services
|
Yes
|
Last, Merrill Edge offers advisory services under the Merrill Guided Investing robo-advisor. There are two options: A fully automated robo-advisor and a version that provides one-on-one consulting with a live financial advisor.
The standard robo-advisor option charges an annual advisory fee of 0.45%, with a $1,000 minimum investment requirement. To get access to live financial advisors, you need a minimum investment of $20,000 and to pay an annual advisory fee of 0.85%. Both of these fees are steeper than comparable services offered by the top platforms in Forbes Advisor’s ranking of Best Robo-Advisors.
Merrill Edge Research and Education
Users get access to a solid collection of research and educational materials on Merrill Edge. BofA Global Research—the former research arm of Merrill Lynch, now Merrill—offers investment-grade insights for roughly 3,200 companies around the world.
Merrill Edge users get access to a comprehensive library BofA Global Research videos, webcasts and podcasts covering every investment category. In addition, the MarketPro platform features streaming news and headlines during the day.
If you’re trying to learn more about investing, the Merrill Edge website provides a library of free articles covering different investment topics as well as webinars and an investment FAQ. They also offer courses covering topics for all their main investment categories, designed in a partnership with Morningstar.
Merrill Edge Customer Service and Security
Merrill Edge provides customer service by phone, email and live chat. Their website says phone and chat support is available 24/7. You could also schedule a meeting with one of their advisors. As part of our review, we tested their customer service options to see how easily we could get answers to questions.
This platform did not perform well in our customer service tests. We were unable to reach them by phone, including a call where we were on hold for 20 minutes before they hung up. Their email support also did not reply to our questions, though they do not seem to actively promote email as a support option so it’s possible they no longer check. Chat support was one area where Merrill Edge stood out, and we were able to rapidly reach live representatives—although they only offered canned replies to our questions.
For account security, Merrill Edge does a good job and offers firewalls, 128-bit encryption, two-factor authentication and additional mobile security features to keep your account safe. They also give clients the standard $500,000 of SIPC insurance as well as an additional $1.9 million of coverage through Lloyd’s of London to protect their portfolios.
About Merrill Edge
Merrill Edge launched in 2010, merging the investment and brokerage services of Merrill Lynch and Bank of America after the latter bought the former during the 2008 financial crisis. Now named Merrill, the firm exists as a division of Bank of America in New York City; Bank of America has their headquarters in Charlotte, N.C. Bank of America has over 170,000 employees and thousands of branches across the country, including those with in-person advisors working for Merrill Edge.
