Public – Stocks and Options
Public Holdings, Inc. · Business
Public is a US investing app for stocks, ETFs and options. Its Generated Assets tool turns a plain-language idea into a custom AI-built index you can backtest.
About Public – Stocks and Options
What Is Public
Public, the app most people reach through Public.com, is a brokerage that lets US investors buy stocks, ETFs, options, bonds and crypto from one account. It runs on web and mobile, and it leans on AI features to help you research and decide rather than just place orders. The headline tool in that push is Generated Assets, an AI builder that turns a sentence into a tradable index.
Setup is quick and the floor is low. You open an account, link a bank, and you can trade fractional shares from your first deposit. Generated Assets sits a step beyond that: it runs a multi-agent research model over public financial data, screens thousands of securities at once, and assembles a portfolio around your thesis. You can backtest it against the S&P 500 to see how the idea held up in the past before you commit a dollar.
Two limits matter here. Generated Assets needs at least $1,000 to start and carries an annual 0.49% management fee, so it suits someone with real capital to place, not a first experiment. And the whole platform is built for US markets and US residents, which rules out investors elsewhere.
Getting Started
- Download the Public app or sign in on the web, then verify your identity and connect a bank account
- Fund the account and pick an asset class, with stocks, ETFs, options, bonds and crypto all in one place
- Type a plain-language prompt into Generated Assets, like a theme or a set of criteria, and let the AI agents screen the market
- Backtest the finished index against the S&P 500, review its score, then invest and set how often the account rebalances
Product Information
A quick look at Public – Stocks and Options's pricing, supported platforms, and performance.
Best for
The users, tasks, and scenarios where this tool fits best.
Users
- Self-directed retail investors
- Options traders
- Thematic investors
- Long-term buy-and-hold savers
Tasks
- Building a custom index
- Backtesting an idea
- Trading options
- Trading stocks and ETFs
- Trading crypto around the clock
Scenarios
- You have a thesis but no fund for it
- You trade options often
- You want hands-off holding
- You want to code your strategy
Key features
Generated Assets, the AI Index Builder
Generated Assets takes a natural-language prompt and turns it into a custom index. It is a form of direct indexing, since you end up owning the individual positions rather than a packaged fund. The idea goes to a swarm of AI evaluation agents that research and screen stocks against criteria like fundamentals, historical performance, growth metrics and sector classification. The result reads like an ETF but tracks your own thesis instead of someone else's basket. You can then analyze it further or invest in it, all inside the same account.
Backtesting Against the S&P 500
Before you put money in, Public lets you backtest the generated index. It shows how the portfolio compared to the S&P 500 over past data and hands back an asset score built on historical returns, stability and diversification. That score is the practical part of the feature: it tells you whether your idea held up in a market cycle rather than just sounding good.
Automatic Rebalancing
A Generated Asset account rebalances on a schedule you pick, from daily to monthly, quarterly, yearly, or never. Cash flows trigger it too. Deposits get invested across the portfolio at the next trading window, dividends are treated like new deposits and reinvested, and withdrawals raise cash by selling holdings. If you choose never, your account only moves on those cash flows, which keeps a buy-and-hold portfolio close to how you set it.
Options Trading With Rebates
Public shares a rebate back with you on every stock and ETF options trade, from $0.06 to $0.18 per contract depending on your monthly volume. Options access runs across four levels, from covered calls and cash-secured puts up to spreads and naked calls and puts, and the higher strategies need both approval and margin. Index options trade on a different pricing path and don't earn the rebate.
Stocks, ETFs and Fractional Shares
The core of the app is plain equity trading, and it carries no commission on stock and ETF trades. You can buy fractional shares when a full one is out of reach, set recurring buys, and trade eligible US stocks in extended hours up to 24 hours a day, five days a week. Research tools, price alerts and real-time insights sit alongside the order screen.
Crypto Trading Around the Clock
Crypto on Public covers more than 40 assets you can trade 24/7 with no maintenance window, including Bitcoin, Ethereum and Doge. Crypto sits beside stocks and options in the same app, so you can hold a mixed portfolio without opening a second account. It runs through a separate crypto broker, which matters if you are comparing how each asset class is held and insured.
Public API and Business Accounts
Business accounts get free access to the Public API for trading and reading stocks, ETFs, options, index options, bonds and crypto. There is no charge for keys or calls, and the API supports fractional shares and extended hours trading. Standard trading costs still apply per asset class, so index options carry a per-contract fee and bonds carry a per-$100 fee.
High-Yield Cash
Idle cash doesn't have to sit still. Public's high-yield cash account pays 3.3% APY with no fees or minimums and up to $5 million in FDIC insurance through its partner banks. For a Generated Asset account, it also explains the small target cash allocation of 0.25% that Public keeps on hand to cover the management fee.
Pros and cons
Pros
- Generated Assets turns a written idea into a real index, a step past the preset baskets most brokers offer
- Options traders get a per-contract rebate, which is unusual among US brokerages
- Stocks, ETFs, options, bonds and crypto sit in one account, so you aren't juggling apps
- Free API access on business accounts supports automated and extended-hours trading
- Common stock and ETF trades carry no commission, and high-yield cash pays 3.3% APY
Cons
- Generated Assets needs $1,000 to open and charges a 0.49% annual fee, which is high next to a plain index fund
- The service is for US residents and US markets, so investors elsewhere can't use it
- Rebalances and cash-flow trades run in two daily windows, so orders aren't filled instantly
- Option approvals, margin and higher levels are gated, and not every applicant gets full access
Frequently asked questions
Public is a US investing app for stocks, ETFs, options, bonds and crypto. It runs on web, iOS and Android and adds AI tools on top of standard brokerage features. The most notable is Generated Assets, which builds a custom, backtestable index from a written prompt.
Related content
Explore related tools, skills, and articles for Public – Stocks and Options.
Public – Stocks and Options Alternatives
Claude for Google Workspace
Anthropic · Writing · Productivity · BusinessClaude for Google Workspace puts Claude in a sidebar inside Google Docs, Sheets, and Slides, where it reads the file you have open and edits it in place.
KloudMate 2.0
KloudMate · Coding · BusinessKloudMate 2.0 is an AI observability platform that keeps logs, metrics, traces, and incidents in one place, with KloudMate Assistant investigating alerts and proposing the fix.
Cekura Bench
Cekura · Voice & Language · BusinessCekura Bench is a public benchmark that runs speech-to-speech models and deployed voice agents through 82 simulated phone calls, three times each, then publishes pass rates, latency and cost.