At Merrill Edge, providing the best investment research and trade ideas to its clients is of the highest priority. So, it comes as no surprise that the online broker platform, part of Bank of America, has been ranked as a Best Online Broker in IBD's 13th annual special report.
For IBD's 2025 Best Online Brokers survey, Merrill Edge also topped the competition in eight out of 20 key attributes measured.
In addition to Merrill Edge, the 2025 list of Best Online Brokers showcases perennial leader Fidelity Investments and mobile-trading favorite Robinhood.
Fidelity has ranked among the top Best Online Brokers every year the survey has been conducted.
Charles Schwab has been honored among IBD's Best Online Brokers for 12 years of the survey. Other online brokers that qualified for this year's survey analysis are Interactive Brokers, E-Trade (owned by Morgan Stanley) and Vanguard.
IBD's annual list of the best online brokers is derived from the results of an extensive survey of thousands of brokerage customers.
Read Our Full Special Report On The Best Online Brokers For 2025
Merrill Edge And The Merrill Lynch Connection
The online broker provides direct access to some of the best investment research via its Merrill Lynch connection. A differentiating factor is also its suite of life planning products that follow investors from their early years all the way to retirement.
"The solutions that we put in place are unique to Merrill Lynch because they're built from our chief investment office — they're not robo products that are just 'set it and forget it,'" said Matt Gellene, head of consumer investments at Merrill Edge. "It's the expertise of Merrill Lynch."
In addition to financial research, Merrill's clients get access to financial planning tools from the beginning stages all the way through retirement.
"For the planning aspect, we start very basically. We have something that's called Life Plan that actually we give to all of our Bank of America clients, but particularly to those that are in consumer investments," said Gellene. "It's a way for people to begin to think through how they're going to save for a specific goal."
Over 4 million people have already started a plan, of which nearly 20% are already asking about retirement savings, he said. This gives Merrill an edge as it feeds more clients from its bank into its online trading platform.
"Because we get that information, we are able to give them the right level of calculators and planning to understand what they've already saved, what their time horizon is and then, customize and tailor-make some solutions for them that will help them get there."
Merrill Edge is a financial platform that offers online and advised investing, trading, brokerage and banking services. It's owned by Bank of America and was launched in 2010 after the merger between Merrill Lynch and Bank of America.
Merrill's Edge Includes Bank Of America
Bank of America consumer bank clients include 69 million small- to medium-size businesses. Gellene said the bank makes sure all of these clients have access to the online platform.
On the Merrill Edge side, it currently manages over $496 billion in assets across 3.9 million accounts. Accounts include self-directed and advised solutions. They usually target clients with $50,000 to $1 million in assets.
In addition to the online platform, clients can also access Merrill Edge's services via 2,700 advisors at Bank of America's branches, as well as another 2,000 representatives from across seven call centers.
The online platform ranks first in the areas of investment research, research tools, as well as portfolio analysis and reports. It's also the top online broker that provides timely information on market shifts, risk management and trade ideas. Up-to-the-minute data on inflation, as well as trade ideas for a down market are also best-in-class areas for Merrill.
Merrill's Tools For A Self-Directed Portfolio
Merrill's Idea Builder is an intuitive interface. Through it, investors can generate investment ideas by plugging in an area of interest, industry or theme. The system then generates stock, ETF and mutual fund ideas that fit that criteria. It also provides Merrill Lynch as well as third-party research and the investment's past performance data.
For example, investors can search for a broad area such as solar energy or cyclicals. They also could look at a specific subsector of those, noted Gellene.
"You can begin to slice and dice it and see where you want to concentrate your search in your self-directed portfolio," he added. Idea Builder is free.
There are also advisors standing by that can help you build your portfolio by using the tools available at Merrill without necessarily giving you any investment advice. This service is also free in the self-directed portfolios.
Merrill Offers Customization For Investors
For professional traders, Merrill offers Merrill Edge MarketPro. Investors can create a customized dashboard and analyze the market with an unlimited amount of layouts and windows.
In addition to stock and fund trades, Merrill also offers a robust options trading platform. It's the only area of its online platform that charges trading fees. Investors can speak to relationship managers who can help with any options strategy and option trades.
Another strong point is the variety of account types that are available to investors. In addition, they can invest their cash at attractive rates.
"We have a whole array of different cash sweep products that are available to our clients across the board," said Gellene. "They're very competitive."
Investors can access higher rates by depositing higher minimums via Preferred Deposit. Or, they can create CD ladders via brokered CDs in the marketplace. Brokered CDs tend to offer longer terms and higher interest rates than traditional CDs because they're directly issued by banks and brokerages.
Merrill Edge Part Of Unified App Suite
In 2024, Bank of America also unified its five apps, including Merrill Edge and Bank of America, into one. Clients can access all their accounts and features through any of the existing apps. Over time, there will be further consolidation with a focus on just one app that manages everything in one place.
"We've had a great year, not only in the number of new accounts opened, but also the amount of new flows," said Gellene. "We had $29 billion of flows as of the third quarter that came into our business, and more than 154,000 new accounts this year. We continue to grow quarter to quarter, year on year."
