Scottrade is one of the many available companies through which individual investors can invest in the stock market online. The Scottrade platform offers a number of advantages for investors including the opportunity to invest not just in stocks but also, mutual funds, options, bonds, and certificates of deposit. Additionally, their research tools offer comprehensive reviews of the stocks, mutual funds, exchange-traded funds, CDs, and bonds. Furthermore, their $7 flat fee for all trades presents a low entry fee compared to other investment fees.

Upon login, the investor’s homepage shows a summary of buying power depending on whether your account is a margin or non-margin account. This is followed by the total money balance available, equivalent to cash that can be withdrawn and the total account value, equivalent to the value of stocks and cash combined. Other available information include open and completed orders, positions, and a watchlist. Across the top of the homepage are tabs which allow the investor to quickly switch to trading, account details, quotes and research, and Scottrade’s Knowledge Center. The Knowledge Center provides investment education, information about Scottrade live events, and even a dictionary of investment terms.

Actually buying stocks is a simple process with additional options as to the type of order, including market, limit, stop, stop limit, and trailing stop orders. International investors also have access to a number of foreign markets. For newer investors, Scottrade offers links to investment basics based on the type of security to be invested in. Furthermore, a quick stock quote and an overview of the three US indices is always available no matter which page the investor is on. Scottrade’s stock research platform provides comprehensive information on any publicly listed company. An initial search for a stock will pull up a summary of the stock, including price to earnings ratios, earnings per share, volatility, and betas. More detailed information is further divided into additional tabs that include the most recent news, charts, options being traded for that stock, fundamentals such as profitability, valuation, and financial strength, trades made by company insiders, earnings, financial reports, and any SEC filings the company makes.

For those who are unsure of where to start when it comes to choosing stocks to buy, the stock screener provides matches based on market segment, price performance, fundamentals, and earnings and dividends. One of Scottrade’s strong points is its low price point for trading. With a flat fee of $7 for each trade, the cost of trading is greatly reduced. This is particularly beneficial for those investors looking to diversify without a ton of money to invest. The minimum initial deposit of $500 also offers cash poor investors a chance to get their feet wet.

Depositing money into a Scottrade account can be done easily through the Money Direct option in which an ACH transfer can be made directly from a bank account. Withdrawing the money is simple enough as well. By calling one of Scottrade’s 483 local offices, a withdrawal can be made with a check sent out in the mail within one business day.

Overall, Scottrade is an excellent trading platform for new and experienced investors. It provides a simple interface with detailed information when necessary. All research can be done in one location with a tremendous amount of investment information available to the investor. Scottrade’s low cost point offers an attractive investment portal for any current or would-be investor.

They have been around for 35 years now, before the internet came into picture. That speaks volumes about Ameritrade’s knowledge and survival in stock markets. But that is not all. TD Ameritrade offers excellent support to the investors. Traditionally investors would spend hours discussing their portfolio of investments and seeking advice from brokers. Online stockbrokers like TD Ameritrade now carry out this function. Therefore, TD Ameritrade offers its clients the required assistance to purchase or sell a stock when it is fairly priced. The company also suggests presence of any leveraging opportunities. At times, it might be advantageous for an investor to borrow and invest. But the investor may not know how much it would cost him, and from where he could raise such finance. They also offer a stock market course for their clients.

TD Ameritrade offers the required cost benefit analysis, as well as finance at very reasonable interest rates. At other times, the stocks may be vary in prices on different stock exchanges, and therefore buying on one stock exchange at lesser price, and selling on another at available higher price before arbitrage takes over makes sense. TD Ameritrade offers investor a chance to take such decisions as quotations from different stock markets can be viewed simultaneously.

Another factor favoring TD Ameritrade is that when it advises its clients on any purchase or sale, it has done its homework through in-house investment professionals. Latest techniques available in the field are employed for such analysis giving accurate results in shortest possible time. Therefore, any such analysis is not influenced either by market conditions or by any other obligations. Long-term investors would also be very pleased with these services. The company believes in maintaining long-term relationship and is there for its customers at all times.

It is possible to trade and invest in derivatives and other instruments such as options, exchange traded funds, bonds, and company deposits through TD Ameritrade. Investors desirous of investing in IPOs can get the latest information on these at TD Ameritrade’s website. There is a charts feature as well. Charts create visual patterns based on data. Such images help in taking decisions faster. These charts indicate the price and volume at which stock is trading at any point of time. Even past data is available in image form, so that investor can identify in which direction the prices are going.

Investors may also customize these charts suiting to their individual needs. One attractive aspect of this chart feature is that it is accessible under different menus. This allows investor to take quick decisions instead of visiting the chart section again. In stock markets such real time decisions are crucial.

Security and transparency become an issue with online stockbrokers, especially because online trading and investing may be prone to hacking. At Ameritrade, utmost care is taken to ensure that anything untoward does not happen. In fact, the company is so confident of its security measures that it offers Asset Protection Guarantee. This means that the company agrees to reimburse losses if they occur due to any lapses in company’s security measures. Clients are also periodically warned about what constitutes a security threat.

Another feature worth mentioning is the alerts. Investors may not be always around trading. The alert feature lets them know anything that they would be interested in about specific stocks or their portfolio. This information would be sent to the cellular phones. So the investor need not sit before the computer all the time. Ameritrade also sends information about how profitable any stock was, or how profitable the profitable investment was during the week.

For those who do not understand the best stocks to buy, the professionals at Ameritrade offer investment strategies. Investors choosing Ameritrade for their stock market operations would be surprised at the user-friendly nature of all these features. Ameritrade charges just $9.99 flat on each trading order that is placed. This is a very reasonable price considering the excellent service from this online stockbroker.

No matter how you’re looking to trade Scottrade can help. If its Stocks, options, mutual funds, bonds or even fixed income investments, these well trained associates are there for you. Scottrade offers many other ways that they can assist you in whatever your financial needs may be.

Scottrade charges $7 a trade (for stocks valued more than $1) no matter the size of the order or how often you trade. Of course that is for trades that are handled on the internet. For trades on the phone with broker assistance, they will charge you $27 per trade. Stocks that are traded on the pink sheet or foreign stocks, they must be done with a broker. So if you’re one of the many people who trade penny stocks, Scottrade may not be the broker for you.

If you don’t trade all that much, Scottrade doesn’t charge for inactivity on any of their accounts. The is never a maintenance charge either. To trade options, Scottrade will charge you $7 per trade plus $1.25 per contract on limit or market orders.

They also have a great support team in place to help you with any questions that you may have. Their associates are in early and stay late to be there when you’ll need them. They also have over 300 branches to assist you if you want to have a face to face with one of their associates.

Scottrade also has what only a few do. A community board where you can talk with other traders like yourself to discuss and collaborate about the stock market. As for taking tips from anyone from the community, I don’t recommend it. No one really knows what will happen to a particular stock.

To open an account with Scottrade, it requires a minimal balance of $500 ($2000 if you want a margin account) along with a completed application to do so.

The one site that I’ll discuss in this post is OptionXpress. A site that focuses on this type of trading, you can trade individual stocks, bonds and mutual funds, but it basically is a option trading site. A site that is listed as the best online broker from Barron’s. four of the five past years. That alone should tell you that you will be in good hands with OptionXpress.

OptionXpress has some great tools to help you get the best spreads and keep you on top of the option market.

They offer some of the best option education to teach you on how to play this type of trading within the stock market. The programs that they offer are set for three different experience levels. if you’re new to options, then they have simple and easy tutorials for you to catch on to the concept.

As for what OptionXpress charges for trades that you make with them. Their fees and charges vary more than most of their competition. if you are going to trade options, their price scale starts at $12.95 and goes up from there depending on how many contract you exercise within a 3 month period (quarter). As for trading stocks the prices starts at $9.95. When it comes to trading individual stocks there prices are pretty much in line with their competitors.

So if you’re looking to do some option trading, then may I suggest you look into OptionXpress.

Fidelity Investments have bee around long before the internet was up and running. So it stands to reason that they’ve been around longer than most of the others that are available today. I remember fidelity twenty plus years ago being a leader within the broker industry.

So what does Fidelity offer for you as a customer? All that the others do. Stocks, mutual funds, CD’s, bonds, fixed income, you name it, they can help you with it. They also offer a stock market course or two. College planning is something else that they can assist with, so what ever your needs may be, Fidelity is there for you. They can set you up with a 529 college savings plan account.

Fidelity charges only $8 per trade no matter the size of the order. They do have a set amount of trades that you can do per year, but it depends on the amount of money you have in your accounts. They offer the most sophisticated and advance tools out there in the market.

If it’s your retirement account that your looking to have Fidelity handle for you. It’s no problem, they’ve been doing that for people for decades quite successfully. Having an account with them gives you access to more than 175 no-load mutual funds as well as 4,500 no-Fidelity funds to choose from in their FundsNetwork®.

Their customer service has been fantastic. Their staff is top-notch and can help you with all of your financial needs, even the ones you didn’t even know that you had. Fidelity has been around for decades and with their service, I’m sure that they’ll be around for decades to come.