Choosing a broker for online trading may seem daunting when you first dive into it. It can be but things have changed a lot in the 10 years I’ve been trading online. My first broker was TD Waterhouse. It cost about $23 bucks to buy a stock with them back then. Wow!
Before long I had three online brokers – Scottrade, Ameritrade, and TD Waterhouse. Since then TDWH and Ameritrade have merged and they still offer the banking option. That is nice because it’s easy to just write a check for some cash instead of paying the wire transfer fees or waiting for the money.
There really is no reason to have more than one broker if you are just starting out. That’s plenty in fact and saves some headaches come tax time.
My reasoning for two brokers was one account would be for long term holdings and the other would be a trading account. That did work for a while but doesn’t apply so much anymore. The account with the most cash gets used.
Both of the above online brokers are good and I’ve never had any problems at all. There are many more nowadays that are cheaper and probably just as good. Do a little research and open up an account. If you don’t like them you can always transfer your holdings or funds to another broker.
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