Can anyone tell me the best online brokerage for buying/selling investments?
824323
I've been with Scottrade for about ten years now... and I believe they are the best discount brokerage available.  You'll pay just $7 a trade.  You'll have resources to explore.  You can even get advice from one of their brokers, which will result in a small fee.  Bottom line: Take it from a retired stock broker... if I could invest at a better company, I'd do it!
466687
http://www.morningstar.com/\n\nIt allows you to pick category types and set characteristics of what you are looking for. Part of the site is free however part requires a fee. The free options are good enough for the average investor though. It covers stocks and mutual funds.\n\nBy the way, if you are just looking for expert picks be very careful following them. Personally I stay away from expert picks because many experts have an agenda of why they choose a stock that does benefit the normal, average investor. For example, why is it that most stock picks by analyists are near their all time high? Well because their trying to drive up the price so they can sell at the top while you hold the bag. Bottom line if you dont understand how to evaluate stocks on your own... dont invest in them. Get a mutual fund which is really a bunch of stocks in one. There are a lot of options also in regards to mutual funds: company type, size of companies, growth and risk potential for example. I learned the hard way in regards to the analyists back during the tech boom of the 80 and 90's. A lot of them got sued for doing what I said above. Dont think they arent still doing it.
295614
MetaTrader 4.0\nTry SNC Investments.  Great platform and you can try it out with a free demo account.  www.sncfx.com
1065485
Check out Investopedia.com. They have a lot of good investing tools & an investing simulator where you can invest $1oo,ooo in virtual money. You can buy stocks at their present value & your "portfolio" is updated every 20 minutes i believe.
429034
try sharebuilder.com, set up automatic investment plan to buy exchanged traded indexes.  (ETFs)
454883
Whoever answers this question, will give you the broker that they have settled on and now use. But their criteria are different than yours, and you don't tell us what yours are.\n\nAre you trading stocks, commodities, futures, options, or all of these? If the latter, TerraNova is the only one that you can trade everything, real time, online, direct access. A lot of online brokerages claim to give you direct access, but if they take more than a second to execute your trade, it aint direct.\n\nFind the articles online that have evaluated and compared online brokerages. I found a good one online in Barron's, but you'll find others in the trading magazines. \n\nThis is worth putting a little time and effort into, because it's a pain to switch, so once you choose, you're kinda stuck with it. \n\nTownsend Electronics, the Parent company of TerraNova, is the one that digitized and electronified the Nasdaq. They are technological industry leaders and have a powerful and well built trading system. \n\nI use RealTick at TerraNovaOnline, but it costs $275/mo, even though it is unlimited what you can do with it. I think the Investor package is free to use, and just uses one screen. \n\nWhat you should try is a free trial of their Investor platform, which is free. You only get one window to trade from, but hey, with $5,000-how many stocks are you going to watch? Their rates are good also, but of course, it depends on how often you trade. It will take you months to learn all the bells and whistles of what this program can do.\n\nThe other top-of-the line program is TradeStation, but it costs big bucks to join and operate. Some people consider it the Cadillac of trading and technical analysis. \n\nTerraNova is the home of the Day Trader, so they think nothing of you making several hundred trades a day. You don't have to do that, but it's okay here if you do.
526784
I say go with Scottrade.  I have been taking a look at the different online brokers and have recently decided to go with Scottrade myself.  They have lower fees and require a lower balance to open an account ($500).  Also they have many offices around the country that are there if you want to meet with someone in person.\n\nTake a look at this link, it compares the online services of different brokers:\n\nhttp://www.scottrade.com/frame_brokers.asp
810393
There are a lot of good brokererages depending on what you like and how you trade.\n\nBarron's Online has a great article on brokerages that they publish each year. (I'll try to find you the link for the March 6,2006 article)\n\nFor basic stuff, E*Trade, Ameritrade, and Scottrade are sufficient. For more complex trades, I'd recommend Optionsxpress, ThinkorSwim, or interactivebrokers. \n\nBased 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!\n\nBrokerages like Fidelity are horrible for anyone with any decent experience. \n\nSo, 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! \n\nAnd if there are particular things that you want to mention as being most important to you (such as executions, cust svc, cheapest trade - which you mentioned, 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!\n\nIf you have any questions, let me know.\n\nHope that helps!
257353
Try these..\nSharebuilder.com\netrade.com, scottrade.com, ameritrade.comameritrade.com \nhttp://www.best4sites.net/mwo/initialpub...\nhttp://www.searchguide.biz/html/index.as...\n(Pick ur best answer)
401930
I'm not sure what company your looking to buy but if you don't have a ton of money I would suggest www.sharebuilder.com
597148
try charles schwab, e-trade, or ameritrade
219016
streetsmart pro @ schwab.com is excellent\n\nfidelity.com also has a good program\n\nclearstation is good, except i don't like etrades market executions.
207767
There are many excellent websites providing investment advice. Investors.com, TradingMarkets.com, and Fool.com are all excellent. They are all different though. \n\nIf you were able to master the material in all three of these sites you would have an extremely thorough knowledge of the market. Applying different investment strategies to different parts of a portfolio provides excellent diversification.\n\nIt is best if you can develop you own skills so you don't need other people's advice. No advice is perfect.
242583
I know that you'd prefer not to go with a broker, as you intend to let ti sit for a few years, but it really is your best bet to go with a discount broker.  Scottrade will let you purchase unlimited shares of the stock for $7 and charges no monthly fees, even if you never make another trade again.  With no monthly fees, there really is no reason not to use a broker.  ShareBuilder offers the same thing for $4, but only if you sign up for their automatic Tuesday investments.\n\nBoth of these options are acutally cheaper than buying the stock directly from the company's share transfer agent.
128839
depends on how active a trader you will be. if you are just buying and holding without keeping a large cash balance then Scottrade is a good choice. Low Commissions.\n\nFidelity.com has very good rates for active traders and has great mutual funds and high paying money market funds for idle cash balances.\n\nSchwab.com commissions are slightly higher, but if you are a very active trader they will compete with other brokers to get your commission rates down.\n\nBrown & Co is now part of Etrade, since I don't care for Etrades service or market making I cannot recommend them at all. Brown is only $5.00 per trade.\n\nAmeritrade... I know many people who use them. It seems as if the website for trading is down to often for me. Schwabs Streetsmart Pro is rarely out of service.
1146995
I've used Scottrade and Ameitrade.  I prefer Scottrade since their commission is lower, $7 for both market and limit orders.  They have 2 offices in my city (in case I need to go there in person) and their scottrader is pretty darn good for streaming quotes and streaming Dow Jones News.  They also have a scottrader elite for accounts over $25K which offers advanced technical analysis and level 2 trading (an extra $10/month).  There is no inactive account fees and all you need is $500 to open an account.  They also offer quite a bit of other research such as free S&P reports on companies.  One final thing is that they offer access to options, bonds, and funds.  I took a look at cybertrader.com and it appears they are geared more towards active traders (at least 20 trades/month), which may not sound like a lot but in reality it is unless your an active trader.  They also offer services in the futures area, which I've never personally used but you may be interested in.  You probably need to decide what type of trading you want to do (active or occasional) and do you want access to futures, options, bonds, funds, etc. and go from there.
41199
Scottrade is the way to go. Their commissions are flat rate and cheaper than everyone else's. I've researched this extensively. They charge 7 bucks for live trades and give you free streaming quotes. Most other places have delayed quotes and charge upwards of 10 dollars for live trades. Sharebuilder claims 4 dollar trades but those you have to schedule a week in advance!!! Their live trades are 14.95!!! Scottrade only requires $500 initial deposit and as you put more money in, they give you A TON of benefits. They have been rated as the best online trading company like 6 years in a row!!!!\n\nHope this helps