If I buy 1 share for 10 companies for my initial investment, do they charge me 10 trades ($7 x 10) or not?

Question

How can I start my initial investment in ShareBuilder or Scottrade?

Answer 1

At these low levels of share purchase you will be hard pressed to make any money after trading costs.

Consider the following:

If you buy 1 share of a $20.00 stock. Even if they charge you $2 per trade then it will cost you $4 to purchase the share and to sell it. This means that the stock will have to go to $24.00 per share before you begin to make money after trading costs.

In other words, the stock will have to appreciate greater than 20% before you start making money. This is a tall order and I daresay if you have to do this in 10 stocks it will be nearly impossible.

Therefore, if you were planning to purchase 10 shares at an average price of $25, then you will be investing $250.00. I would suggest that you chose a low price broad based index or ETF (exchange traded fund) like the SPY, QQQQ, MDY or such and make your investment there until you learn a bit more about investing and the economics of trading.

Good luck.

Answer 2

I have had a Scottrade account and have since I was 14 (10 years). I used it to learn about investing--and I made the same mistake you're talking about.

I only had like $2000 to invest, and I bought 6 different stocks with it--that meant that I only had 5-10 shares of each stock. Some of them did really well over the next few years--going up by a few dollars or more--but I didn't make any money! Why? Because I'd spread myself too thin.

If you own 1000 shares of a stock, you can make loads of money if it goes up even a few cents. But the fewer shares you own, the more the stock has to rise before you even make up your trading fees and break even.

My advice: save your money in cash (it's earning 5% after all right now) until you have at least $5000 (the minimum emergency amount you should have in my opinion). Then open an index fund (whatever type you want--international, REIT, US stock, small cap, etc) with $3000 of it. $3000 is the minimum investment amount for most Vanguard funds, a top rated company with great low cost investment options.

Trading stocks can be fun, but you'll never come out ahead of the market after fees and commissions. Professionals have been trying to do it for 100 years, and almost all of them fail! I now keep less than 5% of my assets with Scottrade--the only reason I keep the account at all is for fun and gambling/day trading. But my Vanguard funds have done better than my stock picks hands down and probably always will.

Answer 3

10 8 10 2

Answer 4

If you just make a "trade" then yes they charge you per trade, (buy or sell)

With share builder you can sign up for regular investing on a monthly schedule. So for $12 per month you could buy 6 stocks and $2 for each additional stock so it would cost $20 a month to buy all 10 stocks, or about $50 less than $7 per trade. However it is done only once a month on a regular schedule so it's not meant for "timing" the market.

So using Share builder I would just Sign up for the $4 per month regular investing and buy a larger quantity of one stock each month, changing what you buy every month. In 10 months you would have all 10 of them. You don't have to purchase a specific number of stocks you can purchase a dollar amount so you'll own partial shares.

Answer 5

Hello,
Penny stocks, also known as cent stocks in some countries, are common shares of small public companies that trade at low prices per share. They are notoriously risky but if you follow a special method I've learned you can earn good money at almost no risk. This is the site I use: http://pennystocks.toptips.org

I definitely recommend subscribing to this site in particular. Very good research, quality stocks. I was a bit weary of penny stocks from all the bad hype they receive but this guy is pretty legit. He's put my mind at ease with a lot of the fears I've had. I especially like that he doesn't send out announcements left and right. I've signed up for other websites that fill my in-box with one company after the other. I don't know where to even start with so many choices in front of me! Nathan sends me one idea a week and that's all I need. Working so many hours during the week leaves me with very little time when I get home to start doing tons of penny stock research. I'm always eager to see what Nathan's next suggestion is each Friday and I love having time on the weekend to do my research.

As said above if you want to make money with penny stocks you have to follow some proven methods. This one in my opinion is the best: http://pennystocks.toptips.org
I hope it helps

Answer 6

Yup, one charge for each trade is customary. But 1 share for 10 companies is a warning flag. Too much diversity, maybe for its own sake, here. You would be better off focusing your investments on a smaller number of well-chosen stocks. And, if you stumbled over the phrase "well chosen", then you need to start with some education before putting your bucks on the line. Making money in stocks is no harder than being a good brain surgeon. Takes time, education, and some expense to get there. And, please be your own counselor here. There are plenty of folks out there that will, for a fee, give you some advice. They say it is good advice, but advice is their business, not stocks. Do not be discouraged by people that say stocks are a lot like gambling. There are a lot of us out here making a decent living off it. Just took the time to get the education, learned from experience.

Answer 7

They will charge you for each trade. However, there are better ways to invest your hard earned money. If you buy 10 different stocks, some will do well, some wont, and you would end up with a modest gain. But suppose one of those stocks earned 20% returns. You would wish you had just bought that one stock, right? If you want to find out which one is the best positioned to make that type of gain, try economicinvest.com where they do extensive research and identify stocks that will outperform the market.

Answer 8

Just don;t do that especially at scottrade. Not what it is set up for. If low on funds should not be buying regular stocks at all but rather closed end investment companies like ADX or PEO or low min mutual funds. in no way should you be trying to buy multiple stocks in that low a qty anywhere. Expenses will eat you alive. feel free to contact if you have more specific info to add

Answer 9

There is another way. It is www.betterinvesting.org You can buy several shares directly from the corporation if they are on the list.

Answer 10

Yes.

I suggest you to open a a brokerage account at TradeKing ($4.95) or SogoInvest ($3.00)