whats the cheapest online stock broker for buying in real time? With little money invested.?

Answer 1

There are a lot of good brokerages depending on what you like and how you trade.

Barron's has a great article on brokerages that they publish each year. (Latest one was in March 6, 2006, though now there’s a 2007 one). Kiplinger does one too.

Here’s the link to the Barron’s article.
http://webreprints.djreprints.com/1550280182488.html

Here’s the link to the Kiplinger’s July 2006 article which isn’t bad either.
http://www.kiplinger.com/magazine/archives/2006/07/brokers.html


For basic stuff, E*Trade, Ameritrade, and Scottrade are sufficient. For more complex trades, I'd recommend Optionsxpress, ThinkorSwim, or interactivebrokers. And yes, TOS knows what an ETF is.

Based on what you put in your question, I'd recommend one of the first three, but all are very good. Cheapest probably is scottrade (of the larger online firms). Yes there are cheaper like interactivebrokers, but you'll have to get used to their software based platform (which is doable). They're only about $1/contract on options!

Brokerages like Fidelity are horrible for anyone with any decent experience. Their fills are bad, their page showing positions is laughable, and a lot of times their reps just don’t understand anything beyond a simple buy/sell.

So, decide what's important to you as a trader and compare the brokers! You can use the article, or go to each website as they all seem to have comparison charts! But as I said, for settlement, that shouldn't change by changing brokers.

And if there are particular things that are most important to you (such as executions, cust svc, cheapest trade, flexibility on allowing you to do certain types of trades, stop and stop limit orders, contingent orders, great graphing, what if scenarios, training, etc), I'll be glad to help discuss this with you too!

If you have any questions, let me know.

Hope that helps!

Answer 2

Among online stockbrokers, Barron's (financial weekly of Dow Jones) has recently given the highest ratings to thinkorswim, OptionsXpress, and Interactive Brokers. I've done some trading activity with all three.

When you say "in real time", if you mean active day trading, you should compare brokers in detail, including margin restrictions. I'd also look at how each firm executes "best price" across different exchanges, your flexibility in routing your order to a specific exchange, and whether you have direct access to the exchanges. The three brokers I've mentioned also offer online tutorials and webinars.

For "dirt cheap" commissions through a Direct Access trader, I'd recommend looking at Interactive Brokers at www.interactivebrokers.com.

To trade stocks, the commission is a half-cent per share, with $1 minimum. So, for example, you buy 100 shares of stock at $40 (cost $4,000) and you pay $1 commission (total cost $4,001).
An individual purchase can be any number of shares, not necessarily "round lots", and the commission is still $.005 per share with $1 minimum.

They do have account minimums -- opening an account takes $5,000 (less for an IRA, more for day traders), but I don't think you have to maintain that high a balance. They also have a minimum monthly total of fees, which I think are $10 generally, or $3 if under age 26, or $20 if the equity balance is under $2,000. But if you trade at all actively, even at $1 commission, you easily satisfy the "activity fee minimum". Many brokers cost you more than $20 if you do two trades in a month. If you use real time data, and don't generate $30 of monthly activity, then there's a $10 fee for real time data.

The detail on individual accounts can be found at:
http://www.interactivebrokers.com/en/accounts/individuals/individualMain.php?ib_entity=llc

I hope you find this useful. I've been very impressed with both their commissions and their trade execution.

Answer 3

For a "newbie" the last place I'd suggest is the cheapest broker (cheap brokers are best for experienced traders).

I love ThinkOrSwim..... but that or any of it's peers (Interactive Brokers, Scottrade etc) are not for the new investor.

My number one suggestion: Charles Schwab

Answer 4

sharebuilder is not a day trading site, zecco has serious customer service issues and thinkorswim has NO CLUE what an ETF is (bailed out on them for scottrade after that nonsense)

Scottrade is your best bet $7 flat $500 to open ACH transfer setup 15 seconds (and works) decent research.

Answer 5

Sharebuilder is pretty good, but you will be able to do market trades for like $4.00, but to set what you want to pay for a share you will have to pay like $19.00

Answer 6

Zecco.