Online stock trading

Online stock trading

The emergance of online stock trading accounts over the last few years has undoubtedly changed the world of amatuer investing dramatically. Prior to the emergance of online brokerage accounts about 10-15 years ago the average individual investor had to seek out a stock broking firm to manage their trades. Over time a few of the high street banks started to offer share trading services.

Why is online stock trading so popular?

Online stock trading is so popular becuse it offers the chance to anyone with access to the internet to trades stocks and potentially benefit from this lurative market for rock bottom prices. The huge competition in the industry has pushed trading comissions and minmum trade sizes down making trading an even more viable option for those with only very small budgets.

Another effect of the huge competition between brokers offering online service is the extra features they offer. As a result many now include as part of their services a variety of tools and research to help you with your investment appraisals.Many now offer price alerts via mobile phone technolog or email or offer stop loss limits meaning that the chances of the market moving against you without you knowing are much lower. Many brokers now also offer company news, research reports, newsletters and forums in order to ensure investors have as much information available to them as possible.



What to look for in an online stock broker

Fees or commissions - Many brokers have minimum commisions and them charge a percentage of the trade size on larger transactions. Others may offer a flat fee no matter what trade size, or discounts if you execute more than a certain amount of trades per month.

Range of Investments - Different brokers will be able to offer you different range of investors. One are many differ is the ability to invest in stock registered on foreeighn exchanges. If yuou want to trade small cap funds, foreign stocks, ETFs etc it is worth bearing this in mind before selecting a broker.

Account features - As discussed above the features offered by different brokers is ever increasing. Many offer different levels of research tools, charting tools, research reports, live quotes etc so be sure to check the features on offer.

Customer support - This can vary massively between brokers. Many offer a telephone service as a back up incase their servers go down, others may not be so helpful. If possible try to speak to friends or fellow investors to get some feedback of their customer experiance.