Stock trading platforms for beginners

03.09.202203.09.2022 admin 0 Comments

Stock trading platforms for beginners

Best Online Brokers for Beginners

The best trading platforms to get started investing

Our editors independently research and recommend the best products and services. You can learn more about our independent review process and partners in our advertiser disclosure. We may receive commissions on purchases made from our chosen links.

New investors look for brokerage platforms that have tools and resources to help guide their investing journey. The best online brokers for beginners are easy to navigate, have strong educational features, provide excellent customer service, and offer a range of portfolio construction options. Some trading platforms for beginners also have low minimum balance requirements and offer demo versions to help get started. We’ll explore the best brokers for beginners so you can better understand the strengths of each platform.

Best Online Brokers and Trading Platforms for Beginners of 2022

TD Ameritrade: Best Broker for Beginners, Best Broker for Investor Education, and Best Broker for Customer Service

TD Ameritrade: Best Broker for Beginners

Why We Chose It

TD Ameritrade is our choice for the best overall broker for beginners due to its strong educational commitment and extensive array of investment resources. The platform deftly blends an expansive offering with an intuitive experience, all while providing the range of features, tools, and support that beginners will find beneficial in growing their investment expertise.

Comprehensive educational resources for new investors

Wide range of trading tools and investment options for every investor preference

User-friendly mobile app and website design

No fractional shares offered

Some account fees are higher than average

Overview

Where TD Ameritrade really shines for beginners is education, offering resources across a wide range of topics and in a variety of formats. Customer service is also readily accessible through a number of different channels, giving new investors peace of mind. Beginners will also find comfort with no balance requirements and low, transparent pricing.

TD Ameritrade also stands out for their intuitive and dynamic portfolio tools. Users of all backgrounds and investing preferences will find trading features that are customizable to their personal strategies, but beginners in particular will benefit from a well-executed design that makes it easy to get started. Navigation between mobile, desktop, and web versions is seamless and provides consistent experiences.

The company’s flagship trading platform, thinkorswim, offers a powerful combination of elite research, screening features, and calculators with backtesting capabilities, letting users test investment strategies on historical data. New product enhancements are continually rolled out as well, including updates to charting functionality and a portfolio digest feature announced in July, 2022. Demo accounts are also available so that investors can ease into the market.

Users report enjoying the impressive, intuitive trading tools and note ongoing innovation as some of the top things to like about TD Ameritrade. Paired with low fees, outstanding customer service, and robust education resources, it’s clear how TD Ameritrade resonates with beginner investors.

TD Ameritrade: Best Broker for Investor Education

Why We Chose It

TD Ameritrade’s broad range and depth of educational content sets it apart from industry competition. For beginners looking to improve their investment knowledge, TD Ameritrade has all the guidance resources necessary to enlighten your journey.

Wide array of educational resources in a variety of formats

Intuitive mobile app makes it easy to start investing

Demo accounts offered to get familiar with the platform

Extensive list of account types makes selecting the right one challenging

Some tools are limited to one platform

Overview

TD Ameritrade stands above the rest when it comes to the range and depth of education resources. Users have access to learning material across a wide variety of channels and formats across desktop, mobile, and web. The education center holds an extensive library of content that is easily searchable depending on your goals, investment knowledge, and topic of interest. Tutorials, podcasts, videos, webinars, and even investment coaching is available, and more.

TD Ameritrade successfully pairs education with technology so your learning experience continually improves. Suggested educational material is personalized based on your preferences, account history, and other investors in a comparable financial situation. As you grow your understanding of investing over time, the site adjusts recommended material to ensure it matches your interests and needs.

New investors who are looking for a hands-on learning experience will find that paperMoney is a powerful tool. This feature allows users to experience the flagship platform, thinkorswim, as an investment simulator so you can improve your market knowledge without investing real money. This tool is accessible on the device of your choice, making it easy to have this learning resource at your fingertips.

TD Ameritrade: Best Broker for Customer Service

Why We Chose It

TD Ameritrade provides exceptional client support, winning our category for best broker for customer service. By pairing an extremely well-rounded educational library with an accessible and responsive customer service team, TD Ameritrade empowers beginners on their investing journey.

Multiple avenues to reach client support teams

Thinkorswim app has live chat functionality

Investors have access to TD Ameritrade financial advisors

Fees may apply when speaking to a live broker

Overview

Customer service is highly accessible through a variety of channels at TD Ameritrade, as it’s clear that the company places satisfied clients high on its list. Users will find live telephone support available 24/7 and chat functionality with a support representative through the thinkorswim mobile experience without needing to leave the app.

Investors can also conveniently reach out on social media whether it’s through Twitter direct messages, Apple Business Chat, or Meta’s message platform. Contact by email is also offered as a way to get in touch. Brokers and TD Ameritrade financial advisors are accessible to investors, but fees may apply.

Users are impressed with not only the accessibility of the customer service team, but also the speed and quality of responses. These aspects make it easy to see how TD Ameritrade came away as the winner of this category.

E*TRADE: Best Broker for Ease of Use

Why We Chose It

E*TRADE wins our Best Broker for Ease of use thanks to user-friendly desktop and mobile experiences to go along with readily accessible tools and features.

Two exceptionally designed mobile apps for investors of different interests

E*TRADE’s prebuilt portfolios and automated portfolio builder let users invest quickly

Demo account offers ability to test platform and strategies before investing

Excellent educational tools and content library

Fractional shares are only offered through a dividend reinvestment plan (DRIP)

Trading on international exchanges is not offered

Overview

E*TRADE has diligently worked on enhancing an already strong desktop and mobile experience, releasing more than a dozen app updates in 2022. These updates include enhancements from position details to site navigation optimization. Continuing improvements to educational material help investors move swiftly from research to investing.

New investors can get started with ease due to straightforward site menus and research tools, although the platform is built for users of all backgrounds and experience levels. A wide range of pre-built portfolios and automated portfolio building tools let beginners enter the market without having to spend an exorbitant amount of time learning the ropes. The demo account option lets users experience the site and test trading approaches without putting real money in the market.

Two mobile apps are offered that cater to investors of different experience levels and trading styles. The E*TRADE mobile app is intuitive, aesthetically pleasing, and geared towards users looking to stay in touch with their brokerage accounts while maintaining full feature parity. The Power E*TRADE mobile app builds on this by providing even more interactive charts and technical analysis to ensure investors have everything needed in the palm of their hand.

User reviews focus on a continually enhanced, intuitive experience, and low or eliminated trading fees. Overall, E*TRADE is one of the most advanced mobile trading platforms, as it’s extremely well designed and offers a wide range of useful features.

Final Verdict

TD Ameritrade and E*TRADE are both strong brokerage platforms with many outstanding qualities. They both have a solid menu of trading resources, expansive content libraries, research tools, and demo accounts to get started. Both have intuitive designs and site navigation to provide a smooth experience. All these factors help ease new investors into the market.

That said, TD Ameritrade takes the top spot overall as the best broker for beginners due to a marginally more robust educational experience and accessible customer service team. Still, E*TRADE has been continually enhancing desktop and mobile offerings, particularly when it comes to education, making the difference between platforms nearly imperceptible. As a result, new investors would do well utilizing either TD Ameritrade or E*TRADE to grow their investment expertise and capabilities.

Trading vs. Investing

Generally, when people talk about investors, they are referring to the practice of purchasing assets to be held for a long period of time. Investors hold their assets long-term so that they may reach a retirement goal or their money can grow more quickly than it would in a standard savings account.

In contrast, trading involves buying and selling assets in a short period of time with the goal of making quick profits. Trading is typically seen as riskier than investing, and those new or inexperienced in trading should do so cautiously.

Before selecting an online broker to use, you’ll need to ask yourself questions including:

How to Pick a Brokerage

You’ll also need to decide the type of brokerage account you’ll want, the fees involved, and how involved you want to be, day-to-day, with your account.

Also consider your investment preferences such as need for research, tools, and portfolio tracking features to ensure the broker you end up choosing will be a match.

You can also read our guide to choosing the right online broker for additional assistance in choosing the right brokerage account.

Frequently Asked Questions

What about Robinhood?

The question of Robinhood remains a difficult one for our review team. The reality is that many new investors are coming into the market through Robinhood. Despite this fact, Robinhood has never taken home our best for beginner’s recommendation, nor does it win any categories in this list. For new investors looking to enter the market, Robinhood provides the path of least resistance.

At the same time, though, this discount broker does next to nothing to prepare investors to be successful. In addition to an overall lack of screeners and other basic tools, Robinhood’s use of gamification tactics may be hurting investors1 more than its publicity grabbing GameStop debacle2 or high payment for order flow.3

When using Robinhood’s trading app, system prompts seem to encourage users to trade more, which allows the company to make more money through payment for order flow. All that aside, Robinhood is a middle-to-low-end broker with a well-optimized app when run through our scoring criteria. As such, we don’t recommend it for new investors, even though we recognize that many new investors are coming into the market that way.

What’s the difference between an online broker and a robo advisor?

Both online brokers and robo advisors focus on making investing accessible, but the approaches are different. Brokers give you all the research tools and market insights needed so that you can create investment strategies that match your preference. Brokers don’t act as advisors or manage your portfolio, but rather empower you with the resources needed to implement your trading approach.

Robo advisors manage a portfolio on your behalf based on your investing experience, goals, and timeline. They also automate features such as rebalancing that can be time consuming for self-directed traders. Typically you’ll invest in a basket of ETFs rather than stocks or more sophisticated assets. While you won’t have as much influence over your portfolio makeup, robo advisor platforms do all the work for you to keep you on track for the long term.

Do you need a lot of money to use an online brokerage?

What do you need to open a brokerage account?

To open a brokerage account, you’ll need several pieces of information available, including:

Is my money safe in a brokerage?

Can I withdraw money from a brokerage?

Withdrawing your money from a brokerage is relatively straightforward. When you have money in a brokerage it is generally invested into certain assets. Sometimes there is cash left on the side that is in the account but not invested. This excess cash can always be withdrawn at any time similar to a bank account withdrawal.

The other money that is invested can only be withdrawn by liquidating the positions held. This means selling the assets that you purchased like stocks, ETFs, and mutual funds. Once sold, you can withdraw that cash.

Terms Beginners Should Know

Anyone who would like to get involved in the stock market should know some basic terminology:

If you’re interested in learning more about the stock market you can check out our guide to investing.

Methodology

Investopedia is dedicated to providing investors with unbiased, comprehensive reviews and ratings of online brokers. This year, we revamped the review process by conducting an extensive survey of customers that are actively looking to start trading and investing with an online broker. We then combined this invaluable information with our subject matter expertise to develop the framework for a quantitative ratings model that is at the core of how we compiled our list of the best online broker and trading platform companies.

This model weighs key factors like trading technology, range of offerings, mobile app usability, research amenities, educational content, portfolio analysis features, customer support, costs, account amenities, and overall trading experience according to their importance. Our team of researchers gathered 2425 data points and weighted 66 criteria based on data collected during extensive research for each of the 25 companies we reviewed.

Many of the brokers we reviewed also gave us live demonstrations of their platforms and services, either at their New York City offices or via video conferencing methods. Live brokerage accounts were also obtained for most of the platforms we reviewed, which our team of expert writers and editors used to perform hands-on testing in order to lend their qualitative point of view.

Read our full Methodology for reviewing online brokers.

Best Trading Platforms 2022

The StockBrokers.com best online brokers 2022 review, our 12th annual, took three months to complete and produced over 40,000 words of research. Here’s how we tested. Our editorial content is independent and unbiased; here’s how we make money.

Do you want to buy shares of stocks like Apple (AAPL), Facebook (FB), Netflix (NFLX), or Tesla (TSLA)? If so, you’ll need to set up a trading account with an online broker.

Our review process at StockBrokers.com is exhaustive: This year we measured more than 200 individual variables across multiple brokers for a total of 3,075 data points.

Best Trading Platforms 2022

Here are the best online brokers for 2022, based on 205 variables.

Best overall, best for beginners

Minimum Deposit	$0.00
Stock Trades	$0.00
Options (Per Contract)	$0.65

Best trading platforms and tools, best customer service

Minimum Deposit	$0.00
Stock Trades	$0.00
Options (Per Contract)	$0.65

Best mobile trading, best for ease of use

Minimum Deposit	$0.00
Stock Trades	$0.00
Options (Per Contract)	$0.65

Best IRA accounts, best broker podcast

Minimum Deposit	$0.00
Stock Trades	$0.00
Options (Per Contract)	$0.65

Best for professionals, best offering of investments

Minimum Deposit	$0.00
Stock Trades	$0.00
Options (Per Contract)	$0.65

EXCLUSIVE: New clients, special margin rates.

Other Trading Platforms

In addition to our top five trading platforms for 2022, we reviewed 10 others: Ally Invest, Firstrade, J.P. Morgan Self-Directed Investing, Merrill Edge, SoFi Invest, TradeStation, Tradier, Robinhood, Vanguard and Webull. Here are our high-level takeaways for each. To dive deeper, read our reviews.

2022 Industry Awards

For the StockBrokers.com 2022 Review, all online broker participants were assessed on 205 variables, with 3,075 data points collected in total. Here are the 2022 main category, secondary category, and industry award winners. Here’s how we tested.

What is the best stockbroker for beginners?

Based on over 30 variables, the best stockbroker for beginners is Fidelity. Alongside top-rated research, Fidelity offers a vast and diverse selection of educational content. Highlights include over 200 videos, progress tracking, quizzes, and over 100 monthly webinars, among others. Add to this its unique Youth Account, a legitimate investing account for teens ages 13 to 17, and Fidelity is a winner.

Which online trading platform is best?

Online trading platforms come in one of three forms: desktop (download), web (browser), and mobile (app). After testing 15 brokers and collecting 3,075 data points, we found that TD Ameritrade has the best desktop trading platform, E*TRADE has the best web trading platform, and Fidelity has the best investor app.

Who are the top 10 brokerage firms?

Ranked by total assets under management, or AUM, the top 10 brokerage firms in 2022 are as follows:

What is the most profitable trading platform?

The most profitable trading platform for you depends on your needs — whether you’re a day trader, active investor, or passive investor employing a long-term buy-and-hold strategy. Fidelity is our top all-around pick for 2022 for its industry-leading research, excellent trading tools, and easy-to-use mobile app.

People often mistake trading platforms — like Robinhood or TD Ameritrade’s thinkorswim — for companies that place trades for you; in reality, these platforms are meant for self-directed trading (though they may offer educational tools and materials). If you’re looking for hands-on guidance with your investments, you can search for a trusted financial advisor on investor.com.

It bears noting that trading profits are never guaranteed; for every potential reward there is an equal amount of risk.

Which online broker has the lowest fees?

What does a stockbroker do?

There are two types of stockbrokers. Online stockbrokers, companies like TD Ameritrade and Fidelity, allow you to buy and sell stocks. Traditional stockbrokers — who are individuals — buy and sell stocks on behalf of clients. Traditional stockbrokers often work for corporations, as opposed to individual investors.

If you are looking to buy and sell stocks on your own, you are looking for an online stockbroker. When you open an account with a regulated brokerage, you can deposit money and make investments in the stock market.

If you want someone to manage your money for you, you might benefit from looking for a Registered Investment Advisory on sites like investor.com.

Should I hire a stockbroker?

It depends on your needs. If you want to handle your own investments, there’s no need to hire an individual stockbroker; opening a free brokerage account with a broker such as TD Ameritrade provides you with the services needed to trade in the stock market, usually for free or for a small commission per trade.

On the other hand, if you want someone to manage your money for you, then you may consider hiring a financial advisor for a fee. Financial advisors can buy and sell stocks, mutual funds, ETFs and other financial assets for you based on your financial goals and risk tolerance. Our sister site, investor.com, ranks the best financial advisor firms in the United States.

2022 Overall Ranking

Here are the Overall rankings for the 15 online brokers who participated in our 2022 Review, sorted by Overall ranking.

Brokers	Overall Rating	Customer Service	Commissions & Fees	Research	Platforms & Tools	Mobile Trading Apps	Offering of Investments	Education	Ease Of Use	Visit Site
Fidelity
TD Ameritrade
E*TRADE
Charles Schwab
Interactive Brokers	Visit Site
Merrill Edge
Firstrade
Ally Invest
TradeStation
J.P. Morgan Self-Directed
Tradier
Webull
Robinhood
Vanguard
SoFi Invest

Methodology

For the StockBrokers.com 12th Annual Review published in January 2022, a total of 3,075 data points were collected over three months and used to score 15 top brokers. This makes StockBrokers.com home to the largest independent database on the web covering the online broker industry.

As part of our annual review process, all brokers had the opportunity to provide updates and key milestones and complete an in-depth data profile, which we hand-checked for accuracy. Brokers also were offered the opportunity to provide executive time for an annual update meeting.

More from the editor

Alongside the StockBrokers.com Annual Review, we also published our sixth annual forex brokers review on our sister site, ForexBrokers.com, reviewing 39 forex brokers from across the globe. And be sure to check the latest ratings of financial advisors and reviews of cashback credit cards and high-yield savings accounts on investor.com.

About the Author

Blain Reinkensmeyer Blain Reinkensmeyer is a Managing Partner at Reink Media Group. He heads research for all U.S.-based brokerages on StockBrokers.com and is respected by executives as the leading analyst covering the online broker industry. Blain’s insights have been featured in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Forbes, and the Chicago Tribune, among other media outlets, and he is noted as a top expert on the U.S. online brokerage industry.

Chris McKhann Chris McKhann has been in the industry for more than 20 years. He has worked for many of the top names in the online trading space, including TD Ameritrade and optionMONSTER, which later became part of E*TRADE. His work has been cited in the Wall Street Journal, Reuters, the Financial Times, Forbes, CNBC, Nasdaq.com and Nikkei. He has also been an advisor and outside trader for several hedge funds. He was one of the first traders to delve into the VIX tradable products and to write about them (back in 2006). Chris is also an educator who teaches high school statistics, finance and computer science.

TD Ameritrade, Inc. and StockBrokers.com are separate, unaffiliated companies and are not responsible for each other’s services and products. View terms.

Advertiser Disclosure: StockBrokers.com helps investors across the globe by spending over 1,000 hours each year testing and researching online brokers. How do we make money? Our partners compensate us through paid advertising. While partners may pay to provide offers or be featured, e.g. exclusive offers, they cannot pay to alter our recommendations, advice, ratings, or any other content throughout the site. Furthermore, our content and research teams do not participate in any advertising planning nor are they permitted access to advertising campaign data. Here’s how we make money.

Disclaimer: It is our organization’s primary mission to provide reviews, commentary, and analysis that are unbiased and objective. While StockBrokers.com has all data verified by industry participants, it can vary from time to time. Operating as an online business, this site may be compensated through third party advertisers. Our receipt of such compensation shall not be construed as an endorsement or recommendation by StockBrokers.com, nor shall it bias our reviews, analysis, and opinions. Please see our General Disclaimers for more information.

Best Trading Platforms for Beginners 2022

The best trading platforms for beginners all offer three essential benefits. First, the platform itself should be easy to use and beginner-friendly. Second is the provision of a variety of educational materials to get new investors off to a strong start. And third, the best platforms deliver access to quality stock market research.

For our 2022 Review, we tested and scored 15 trading platforms, focusing on features that are essential for beginning investors. In addition to in-depth testing of each learning center, we looked at which brokers offer unique features like webinars, live seminars, videos, progress tracking, paper (or virtual) trading and interactive educational elements such as quizzes.

Best Trading Platforms for Beginners 2022

Here are the best online stock trading sites for beginners:

Best overall for beginners

Minimum Deposit	$0.00
Stock Trades	$0.00
Options (Per Contract)	$0.65

Fidelity is a winner for beginners, thanks to its plethora of educational resources that includes a Learning Center stocked with videos, infographics, and even podcasts. Fidelity also offers an innovative Youth Account – a first-of-its-kind brokerage account for teens aged 13 to 17. Read full review

Minimum Deposit	$0.00
Stock Trades	$0.00
Options (Per Contract)	$0.65

Best for ease of use

Minimum Deposit	$0.00
Stock Trades	$0.00
Options (Per Contract)	$0.65

Earning a recommendation based on its trading platform alone, E*TRADE is great for any beginner stock trader. Power E*TRADE is easy to use and offers features including paper (practice) trading and note-taking. Its educational content, though plentiful, can be a challenge to navigate. Read full review

Best client experience

Minimum Deposit	$0.00
Stock Trades	$0.00
Options (Per Contract)	$0.65

Best investor community

Minimum Deposit	$0.00
Stock Trades	$0.00
Options (Per Contract)	$0.00

Webull offers a unique community experience and easy-to-use trading platforms that will satisfy most young investors. Its educational materials, however, are lacking compared to leaders in this area. Read full review

Other Trading Platforms

Best Platforms for Beginners: Pricing Comparison

Here’s a comparison of pricing across Fidelity, TD Ameritrade and E*TRADE. For more comparisons, use our online broker comparison tool.

Feature	Fidelity	TD Ameritrade	*ETRADE**
Minimum Deposit	$0.00	$0.00	$0.00
Stock Trades	$0.00	$0.00	$0.00
ETF Trade Fee	$0.00	$0.00	$0.00
Mutual Fund Trade Fee	$49.95	$74.95	$19.99
Options (Base Fee)	$0.00	$0.00	$0.00
Options (Per Contract)	$0.65	$0.65	$0.65
Futures (Per Contract)	N/A	$2.25	$1.50
Broker Assisted Trade Fee	$32.95	$25.00	$25.00

Best Platforms for Beginners: Education Comparison

Here’s a comparison of the most popular educational features offered by beginner trading platforms. To compare 150+ features and fees side by side, check out our online broker comparison tool.

Which online broker is best for beginners?

Based on our extensive testing, Fidelity takes the top spot this year as the best all-around choice for beginners, due to its fantastic ease of use and top rankings in education and research. Add in the option to trade fractional shares and its unique youth account offering (which captured our innovation award), and we have a winner.

Which trading platform is best for beginners?

The best trading platform for beginners is Power E*TRADE. E*TRADE offers Power E*TRADE as both a browser platform and mobile app. The availability of paper trading, as well as HTML5 charts with automated technical analysis and screening tools for both stocks and options, make Power E*TRADE an excellent option for beginners.

What is the best stock trading app for beginners?

For beginners, our favorite trading apps are Fidelity and TD Ameritrade. Fidelity provides the best market research and stock analysis, alongside an in-depth learning center.

TD Ameritrade offers the most comprehensive selection of trading tools, and provides access to its entire educational video library for beginners, which is easily navigable by topic.

How do I start trading for beginners?

To start trading as a beginner you must have a brokerage account, an investment strategy and an expected time horizon that you plan to hold. Scan the market for trading ideas while taking baby steps to size your trades appropriately.

Trading platform: A demo or virtual account from a broker is a great way to learn the trading software you are using and understand how order types can help you manage risk while entering and exiting positions.

Trading strategy: After opening a brokerage account, there are several decisions you will need to prepare for when trading as a beginner, such as what to trade and when to trade it, and how much money to budget.

Time frame: Whether investing for the long term as a passive investor or trading more actively, you must focus on present market conditions and recent price activity when deciding how long you want to hold.

Baby steps: Fractional shares are another way to ease your way into the world of stock trading while taking less risk, allowing you to focus on percentage returns before taking steps to increase your trading budget.

How do beginners trade stocks?

Here are common steps for beginners when learning how to buy stocks online:

1. Account setup: Open a self-directed brokerage account.

2. Navigate platform: Learn how the trading software works (website, mobile app or desktop).

3. Budget: Decide on a monthly amount you can afford to risk.

4. Strategize: Develop an investing style, such as buy and hold or short-term trading.

5. Manage risk and reward: Incorporate rules using order types (stop and limit orders).

6. Set goals: Focus on percentage returns and decide on your time horizon.

7. Find stocks to trade: Analyze news and research to find investment opportunities.

8. Avoid concentrated positions: Don’t put too much into a single position.

9. Index funds: Consider incorporating low-cost index funds such to gain broad market exposure.

How do you buy stocks online?

To buy stocks, first, you need to open and fund an online brokerage account. Next, research which stock you want to buy. Last, go to the order ticket, enter the stock symbol — along with the number of shares — you want to buy, then place your trade.

What is paper trading?

Paper trading, or virtual trading, is a trading platform feature that enables the trading of stocks, ETFs, and options with virtual currency (fake money). This helpful learning tool is popular with beginners and is a great way to practice stock trading without risking real money. The two top-rated brokers that offer paper trading are TD Ameritrade and E*TRADE.

What are fractional shares?

What is a market order?

A market order is an order to buy or sell a security (such as a stock) at the current best-available market price. Market orders are the most common type of order, as they are the fastest and easiest way to buy and sell shares.

What is a limit order?

A limit order is an order to buy or sell a security at a pre-specified price or better. Since limit orders are fixed to a pre-specified price, they will only fill when the limit price is reached. Limit orders are best when you know the exact price at which you want to buy or sell a stock.

Is online trading safe?

Online trading is safe if you use a regulated online stock broker and never invest more than you are willing to lose. Trading stocks online is inherently risky. Start with a small amount of money, read investing books, and keep it simple by buying and holding for the long term rather than trying to time the market.

StockBrokers.com 2022 Overall Ranking

Here are the Overall rankings for the 15 online brokers who participated in our 2022 Review, sorted by Overall ranking.

Brokers	Overall Rating	Customer Service	Commissions & Fees	Research	Platforms & Tools	Mobile Trading Apps	Offering of Investments	Education	Ease Of Use	Visit Site
Fidelity
TD Ameritrade
E*TRADE
Charles Schwab
Interactive Brokers	Visit Site
Merrill Edge
Firstrade
Ally Invest
TradeStation
J.P. Morgan Self-Directed
Tradier
Webull
Robinhood
Vanguard
SoFi Invest

Methodology

About the Author

TD Ameritrade, Inc. and StockBrokers.com are separate, unaffiliated companies and are not responsible for each other’s services and products. View terms.

4 Best Stock Trading Platforms for Beginners Tested [2022]

Our In-depth Beginner Stock Trading Platform Review Compares The Best Options Ranked On Ease Of Use, Social Trading, Charts, Screeners & Support

The stock best trading platforms for beginners are TradingView, Finviz, TrendSpider, and TC2000 because of their ease of use, community support, simple workflows, and educational content.

If you are starting on your exciting stock market trading journey, you need a charting platform that is intuitive yet powerful. You need to join a community of traders and be inspired by their ideas. Finally, you need high-quality educational resources and not to break the bank on software costs.

The Best Stock Trading Platforms For Beginners

Table of Contents

Best Trading Platforms for Beginners Summary

Our winner for best trading platform for beginners is TradingView, because it is free, has a huge community generating educational content, and is incredibly easy to use. Finviz is also excellent for beginners because it can present a lot of useful information in an incredibly simple format; add to that automated pattern recognition and trendlines, and you have a great choice.

Next on our list is TrendSpider which uses AI and smart algorithms to detect stock chart patterns and trendlines on multiple timeframes to help the novice trader learn quickly and effectively. Finally, TC2000, the software I learned to trade with, is intuitive and has integrated trading from charts using the TC2000 Brokerage.

1. TradingView: Winner Best Trading Platform for Beginners

My research shows that TradingView is the best trading platform for beginners because it is the perfect place to learn to trade. The TradingView community helps educate and inspire traders, and best of all, the platform is free and easy to use but has the power to grow with you on your learning path.

TradingView Rating	4.8/5.0
⚡ Free Features	Charts, Trading, News, Watchlists, Screening, Backtesting, App
🏆 Beginner Features	Easy to Use, Huge Community, Great Educational Content
🎯 Best for	Learning, Engaging, Chatting, Insights
🆓 Free Version	TradingView Free
🎮 Premium Trial	Free 30-Day
✂ Premium Discount	-50% Discount
🌎 Markets Covered	Global

We independently research and recommend the best products. We also work with partners to negotiate discounts for you and may earn a small fee through our links.

I actively use TradingView every day; it is a key tool in my portfolio; it is not just for beginners but also experienced traders. That means the platform will grow with you. TradingView has excellent social integration, chat, news, and the ability to follow other investors and view and share trade ideas. Add to that global stock exchange data, TradingView is the best global stock trading and charting platform.

TradingView Platform For Beginners

TradingView runs on PC, Mac, Tablets, and Smartphones and requires zero installation; it simply works. The Market data is huge, covering nearly all Stock Markets. It includes Stock, ETFs, Futures, Foreign Exchange & Bonds, all at no extra price, which means outstanding value for money combined with excellent support options. Simply click this link, and TradingView with be working for you.

TradingView’s Huge Market Data Coverage – Includes almost anything you need to know.

Also, a huge benefit is that the data speed and coverage are mind-blowing, covering literally every stock market on the planet and not just stocks but a lot more.

TradingView for Beginners Video

What Can I Trade Using TradingView?

TradingView makes trading for beginners easy because you can trade stocks, Forex, Futures, Cryptocurrencies, and Bonds globally from one account. Trade Management. TradingView makes Trading simple because you get broker integration in every country, you can place trades on charts, and it will take care of profit and loss reporting and analysis.

Why is TradingView Perfect For Beginners?

TradingView is perfect for beginners because it has a thriving community of thousands of creators and analysts providing stock charts, ideas, and thoughtful educational content that helps novices learn fast. You can follow me on TradingView to see my market predictions and educational articles.

Why not join me and 10 million traders on TradingView for free. TradingView is the best place to meet other investors, share ideas, chart, screen, and chat. Chart, scan & connect with me for free on TradingView for my latest trading ideas and chart analysis.

TradingView is built with social at the forefront, and it is simply the best to socially share and learn; forget StockTwits; Tradingview is the best. Fully integrated chat systems, chat forums, and an excellent way to share your drawings and analysis with a single click to any group or forum.

This makes for an excellent way to generate trade ideas or learn from other traders. You have to try it and see it in action to understand the power of the implementation. However, I always warn be careful of who you listen to; you should always make up your own mind.

They have also thoughtfully integrated a Kiplinger newsfeed, Stocktwits, and various FX newsfeeds. It is a great package with a social-first development methodology combined with powerful economic statistics and a solid newsfeed.

As soon as you connect to TradingView, you realize it is developed for the community. You can look at community trade ideas, post your charts and ideas, and join limitless numbers of groups covering everything from Bonds to Cryptocurrencies.

Screening For Beginners & Experienced Traders

TradingView makes finding stocks to trade easily because the screener is simple yet powerful. The list of financials you can scan and filter on is truly huge. Any idea you have based on fundamentals will be covered. Watchlists have performance, valuation, dividends, margin, income statement, and balance sheet fundamentals. You can set the watchlist and filters to refresh every minute if you wish.

Screenshot: The TradingView Stock Screener Comes With 150 Different FiltersThe TradingView Stock Screener comes complete with 150 fundamental and technical screening criteria; all the usual criteria are there, such as EPS, Quick Ratio, Pre-Tax Margin, and PE Ratio (forwards and trailing twelve months). But it also goes deeps with more esoteric criteria such as the number of employees, Goodwill, and Enterprise Value.

Another great thing about the screener implementation is that it is very customizable; you can configure the column and filter exactly how you like it. As you can see above, I have changed the overview screen to include the number of employees, P/E, and EPS TTM.

Why Is TradingView Number One For Beginners?

1. Automatic Stock Chart Technical Analysis Indicator Rating

Most people do not want to learn how each indicator works in-depth. This innovation allows you to save time by getting an instant readout of which indicators are bullish, bearish, or neutral.

This is well implemented because there are two key types of technical analysis indicators, moving averages based on price and oscillators based on price and or volume.

TradingView has implemented an innovative automatic technical analysis rating system, which accurately suggests if an indicator is Buy, Sell, or Neutral.

When you view a chart, you can simply click on “Technicals,” and you are presented with three gauges. Left shows the oscillating indicators like relative strength, stochastics, and Average Directional Index. On the right, you have a selection of Moving Averages, Simple, Exponential, and even Ichimoku Cloud.

Each indicator is then averaged out to give an overall Buy, Sell, or Neutral Rating.

This is an excellent implementation of automated technical analysis designed with the user in mind.

TradingView Charts In Action – Try It Here

Example: AAPL Apple Stock Chart with RSI & Ichimoku Cloud.

2. Simple Yet Advanced Charts

I was incredibly impressed with the offering of Kagi, Heikin Ashi, and Renko Charts, including Point & Figure and Line Break. Also, the user community has developed indicators as exotic as Moon Phase (see chart below).

With this selection of charts, you have everything you will need as an advanced trader. Plus, you also get Level II insight, fully integrated with the Premium membership. Well done, TradingView.

TradingView’s Fantastic Stock Charts for Beginners

Did I mention the charts are fast and beautiful?

Also, they have implemented Darvas Box, Elliot Wave, and Point & Figure Charts for the technical analyst. All-round an excellent package.

3. TradingView Alerts on Indicators & Drawings

Easy to use for Beginners

Within 5 minutes, I used TradingView, with no credit card, no installation, and no configuring data feeds; it was literally just there. TradingView is up and running with a single click. It does not get easier than that.

Even better is the fact that it is already configured for use. All controls are intuitive, and the charts look amazing. It is quite a feat that it is so easy to use, considering TradingView has so many data feeds and backend power.

2. Finviz: Fast Free Powerful Stock Charts & Screening For Beginners

Finviz is a great choice for beginners because it provides lightning-fast free stock charting, screening, and stock chart pattern recognition. Finviz enables investors to easily visualize a vast amount of stock market data with heatmaps and money flows on a single screen.

Finviz Rating	4.5/5.0
⚡ Free Features	Charts, News, Watchlists, 50 Screener Configs, Heatmaps [Ad-supported]
🏆 Beginner Features	Fast, Easy to Use, Simple Screening, Very Visual
🎯 Best for	Beginner Investors
🆓 Free Version	Finviz Free
🎮 Premium Trial	30-Day Money-Back
✂ Premium Discount	-37% With Annual Plan
🌎 Markets Covered	USA

Why is Finviz Great for Beginner Traders?

Finviz is ideal for beginner investors because it is free, fast, and is easy to use. Beneath the simplicity is a workhorse that displays an incredible amount of useful data, including news, insider trading, financials, and beautiful charts.

Finviz Heatmaps Are Great for Beginners

The Finviz heatmaps are the star of the show, providing a view of the US or even the entire world’s stock markets. Finviz manages to cram the entire world’s moving stocks onto a single page heatmap at lightning speed, which is impressive. Simply hovering your mouse over a ticker symbol shows you the stock’s current performance, a mini line chart, and the company’s direct competitors.

Finviz Review: Finviz Heatmaps for Stocks

Interestingly, viewing the Finviz stocks heatmaps based on analyst recommendations show how biased institutional analysts are, as 70% of stocks are flagged as positive.

Finviz allows you to visualize markets based on stock price performance, volume, P/E, PEG, Dividend Yield, Float, EPS, and even analyst recommendations. Finviz allows you to double click on a stock and jump directly to the individual company data and chart. The whole process is extremely fast and efficient.

Finviz Free Stock Charting

Looking at stock charts with Finviz is different from the other stock software products. Whereas MetaStock & TradingView provide hundreds of fundamental technical analysis indicators, Finviz focuses on providing basic pattern recognition on daily charts and a small handful of overlays and indicators.

I like the Finviz automatic trendline recognition and how it identifies price patterns like wedges, triangles, double tops, and channels; this is a big advantage for pattern traders.

Finviz Review: Finviz Charts With Indicators (notice the blue save buttons)

The free Finviz service is worth using, with excellent heatmaps, free global stock screening service, good news aggregation, and insider trading information. What more do you expect for free? Finviz provides incredibly fast stock screening, heatmaps, and stock chart pattern recognition. If you want to visualize a large amount of stock data and find investments quickly, Finviz is definitely worth it.

3. TrendSpider: Automated Stock Charts Analysis for Beginners

Trendspider is perfect for beginners because it does everything for you, chart analysis, drawing trendlines, tweaking indicators, and analyzing timeframes.

TrendSpider Rating	4.4/5.0
⚡ Features	Charts, Watchlists, Automated Trendlines, Pattern Recognition
🏆 Beginner Features	Performs All Chart Analysis For You, 121 Support, Great Educational Content
🎯 Best for	Beginner Traders
🎮 Premium Trial	Free 7-Day
✂ Premium Discount	-40% Use Coupon Code “LIB40”
🌎 Markets Covered	USA

Learning the skills of determining trendlines and market direction is a tough ask for beginner traders; this is where TrendSpider excels.

TrendSpider’s automated trendline detection saves a lot of time for newbies, speeds up trade preparation in the morning, and improves accuracy. The TrendSpider algorithm uses mathematics to correlate all the bars on a chart and draw the lines. It highlights the touches at peaks and troughs in a price trend.

As a technical analyst, this is how you are supposed to do it; the more times a price touches the trend line and reverses, the stronger the trend. Therefore, it is more predictive if a price breaks through strong support and resistance area.

If you do not like a trend that the AI has used, you can manually delete it or fine-tune it. With this capability, you can have a complete trendline analysis on any chart in a few seconds.

Multi-Timeframe Analysis For Beginners

Here is where it gets even more interesting, the Multi-Timeframe Analysis can be used to super-impose trendlines or indicators from different timeframes onto a single chart. It may seem a little complex at first, but it makes a lot of sense when you get used to it. Instead of constantly switching timeframes and redrawing trendlines, it is simplý there.

It is not just for trendlines, though; you can use it with the array of 42 stock chart indicators to ensure you do not miss anything.

TrendSpider’s Automation is Great for Beginner Traders

Advanced Support & Resistance Lines

The one thing that blew me away is that the TrendSpider team has found a really elegant way to take the masses of computed data and overlay it onto a single chart.

Using the drop-down selector “S/R Trends” enables a kind of heat map, which shows the hundreds of potential trendlines, and the darker red the area, the more touches and concentration of trendlines there are. See the chart below for reference.

Automated Support and Resistance Lines with TrendSpider

Trendspider Summary

We have focused on what is unique about Trendspider; it is designed for a specific purpose, taking the guesswork and painstaking hours of analysis away from traders. But what do you not get? You do not get fundamental scanning & filtering, trading from charts, or broker integration. There is no social aspect at the moment and no news service. But it is not designed for these things; it is designed for fast, effective machine-driven technical analysis.

I see a bright future for TrendSpider; for example, I expect soon to be able to see the analysis of how well any given indicator or price pattern works overall or for any given stock. Analyzing the probability of a successful prediction would be an amazing leap forward.

4. TC2000: Easy to Use Charts & Great Resources For Beginners.

TC2000 is an excellent choice for beginners because it has great charts, screening, and trading, all backed up with the best customer support and live educational seminars across the USA.

Why Is TC2000 a Good Choice for beginner investors?

TC2000 is a great choice for beginner investors if you have a basic understanding of financial ratios and technical signals. TC2000 enables you to create EasyScans to quickly identify trading opportunities based on simple yet effective criteria.

TC2000 has long been one of my favorite tools. I have been a Platinum service subscriber for over 20 years. I started learning stock trading as a beginner with TC2000. TC2000 is an endlessly customizable and scalable platform that offers everything an investor in stocks, exchange-traded funds, and options would need.

TC2000 was a winner in our Best Stock Market Analysis Software Review, beating 25 other competitors.

TC2000 Trading Platform For Beginners

As I have been using TC2000 since 1999, I can say the software is first class and reliable. TC2000 runs natively on the PC. It is fast, responsive, and simple to use. The resolution of the software enables very intricate design details that other development platforms cannot match. Very quick to download, and installation is a breeze.

TC2000 Support & Customer Service

Support is excellent both on the forums, via email, or the phone. When you call, you will get straight through and can speak with skilled personnel in the US; I have never had an issue where it was not solved more or less immediately.

If you have not selected a Brokerage, you should look at TC2000 Brokerage as an option; they have competitive rates, which means you get full integration to trade stocks & options directly from your charts, a huge bonus.

This is a great solution if you trade U.S. Stocks, ETFs, or Mutual Funds. Worden also provides regular live training seminars of very high quality and tours the US A with free live training seminars for subscribers.

TC2000 Training & Education

The Worden Brothers in-house training team has hundreds of video webinars online available instantly. But even better than that, they seem to be on a more or less ongoing roadshow with live free seminars across the United States. One of my students recently wrote to me telling me how great the training was and how much she learned. If you are based in the US or can travel, it is well worth attending one of the scheduled seminars.

Fundamental Scanning and Screening

Make no mistake about it, if you want fundamentals stock screeners in real-time layered with technical screens integrated into live watch lists connected to your charts, TC2000 is a power player.

I selected TC2000 as my tool of choice back in 1999 because it offered back then simply the best implementation of fundamental scanning, filtering, and sorting available on the market. Twenty years later, they are still a leader in this section.

They offer a huge selection of fundamentals to choose from 192, to be exact, but even better than that, what makes it truly unique is the fact you can, with a few clicks, create your own indicators based on the fundamentals.

You can then overlay the indicators directly on the charts, opening a whole new world of technical and fundamental analysis. 10 out of 10 for TC2000 again.

Technical Chart Analysis

TC2000 has an excellent array of technical indicators and drawing tools; all the big ones are there, from OBV, RSI, and Bollinger Bands to Fibonacci Fans and Andrews Pitchfork. With over 240 different indicators, you will have plenty to play with.

Here is a setup I use to find divergences in stock price and volume supply and demand; it is very reliable because it uses a mix of price, volume, and price/volume indicators. I also have backtested Ichimoku Cloud indicator accuracy, which is also quite reliable.

Ease Of Use – Perfect For Beginner Traders

TC2000 is easy to use and yet very powerful. The interface design strikes the right balance between looking great and being instantly useful.

A heavy focus on watchlist management, flagging stocks, making notes, and powerful scanning make it easy to use and master. The software setup is completed in a few minutes, but it also runs perfectly across devices.

Instant Usability.

If you want to run a very quick test to see how easy to use TC2000 is, try the following.

In 5 Clicks, you have this great industry sector drill down.

tc2000 Sector Analysis Drill Down

I have drilled down into the Technology sector in the above chart, and instantly we see the industry indexes, Semi-Conductor, Gaming, Solar, etc. What is really nice is that we see to the right the relative performance for the sector versus the S&P-500.

Instantly you can see which sectors are outperforming the market in 5 clicks.

Easy Scan Dashboards

EasyScan Dashboards are reports that can track multiple EasyScans at one time. Counts are continuously updated to see stocks move between your scans, which is great for beginners to get a feel for the market.

Summary – TC2000 Great For Beginners

I thoroughly enjoyed “growing up” as a trader with TC2000; it is a first-class platform with a team built on integrity, value for money, and cutting-edge technology that unleashes investing opportunities.

Best Beginner Stock Trading Platforms Summary

If you want the best social community to learn to trade, then your only choice is the TradingView platform. If you are a beginner trader who wants a simple yet powerful visual trading platform, then FinViz is the right choice. If you want AI algorithms to do the hard work for you, TrendSpider is the best. If you want great stock market screening and trading from charts, then choose TC2000.

Are You Looking For Stock Investing & Trading Software? Here Are My Favorites.

My favorite software for trading is TradingView because it does everything well. It has backtesting, great charts, stock screening, and an active community of over 3 million people sharing ideas, plus a free plan available globally.

My favorite software for investing is Stock Rover, as it specializes in deep fundamental financial screening, research, and portfolio management. It is the ideal platform for dividend, value, and growth investing.

My favorite software for stock market news is Benzinga Pro, with its super-fast real-time news engine, squawk box, and news impact ratings.

My favorite AI trading software is TrendSpider which enables automatic pattern recognition for Trendlines, Candlesticks, and Fibonacci levels. Trade Ideas uses AI to generate high probability daily trading signals for auto-trading.

My favorite stock-picking service is Motley Fool Stock Advisor, which has a proven track record of beating the market with excellent stock research reports.

Best Online Brokers and Trading Platforms

A comprehensive, unbiased look at the best online brokerages

Throughout history, financial assets like stocks, bonds, commodities, and currencies have witnessed alternating cycles of rising and falling prices. These fluctuations represent market opportunities for traders and investors looking to grow their hard-earned money. One critical step in making the most of the financial markets is finding an online broker that best fits your personality and financial goals.

Best Online Brokerage Accounts and Trading Platforms of 2022

Fidelity Investments: Best Overall, Best Broker for ETFs, and Best Broker for Low Costs

Why We Chose It

Fidelity continues its multi-year reign as our top pick for the best broker overall and the Best Broker for Low Costs. For the first time, the company has also been awarded the top slot in our Best Broker for ETFs category, beating out Charles Schwab. Fidelity brings the full-service experience to both its institutional and retail clients with sophisticated tools presented through a simple workflow, all at a low price.

Committed to eliminating common account fees

Strong portfolio analysis and account features

Excellent order execution

Powerful Active Trader Pro platform

Fractional shares trading in over 7000 U.S. stocks and ETFs

Higher broker-assisted trade fees

Minimum balance for some index trading

No access for non-U.S. citizens

Multiple platforms may be required to access all tools

Overview

Always striving to improve its products and services, Fidelity recently made news by launching a Digital Assets Account (DAA) which will enable plan sponsors to offer their participants access to Bitcoin through an investment option in their plan’s core lineup. In addition, the company introduced the Fidelity Crypto Industry and Digital Payments ETF (FDIG), along with a Fidelity Metaverse ETF (FMET). Enhancements also came to the institutional side of the business, with the company expanding access to some of its proprietary tools like Fidelity Bond Beacon.

For investors looking for individual help, Fidelity has added to its lineup with digital direct indexing accounts called Fidelity Managed FidFolios. The FidFolios use fractional shares to mimic indexes with ownership of the actual stock rather than an ETF, allowing for deeper customization. But the improvements don’t stop there, as Fidelity also upgraded its mobile experience with a redesigned app dashboard that includes streaming quotes on the home screen and further news feed customizations.

After years of very tight competition, Fidelity surpassed Charles Schwab as our best broker for ETFs this year. Like Schwab, Fidelity offers rich ETF-focused educational content, powerful ETF screening tools, and a deep pool of ETFs to choose from. But it was Fidelity’s fractional share trading in ETFs that helped push it over the top.

Fidelity has been an industry leader when it comes to lowering fees, and it has a stellar reputation as a broker with a huge customer service network supporting its low-cost, high-value offering. Investors looking for an online broker that keeps costs low while delivering value will be hard-pressed to find a better broker than Fidelity.

TD Ameritrade: Best Broker for Beginners and Best Broker for Mobile

Why We Chose It

TD Ameritrade maintains its position as the Best Broker for Beginners and the Best Broker for Mobile because of its intuitive platform, comprehensive educational offering, and outstanding mobile options analytics, research amenities, and trading tools.

Wide range of product offerings

Superb educational content

Top-notch trading technology and options analytics across platforms

Very capable paper trading platform

Strong customer support

Some account fees are relatively high

Does not offer fractional shares

Must opt in for automatic cash sweep

Cryptocurrency trading through OTC trusts, ETFs, mutual funds, and Bitcoin futures only

Overview

We chose TD Ameritrade to repeat as the winner of our best broker for beginners and best broker for mobile categories because of its ongoing commitment to provide investors with easy access to some of the industry’s best educational content, mobile trading tools, and research amenities.

Founded in 1975 and purchased by Charles Schwab in 2019, TD Ameritrade is a top full service online broker. True to form, the company continues to roll out new product enhancements, like updates to its already impressive charting functionality and a portfolio digest feature announced in 2022.

TD Ameritrade’s highly regarded thinkorswim® trading platform is powerful yet intuitive. Developing personal trading strategies is made easier with access to robust backtest tools, while the implementation of these strategies can be practiced using the platform’s very capable paper trading function. When it comes to functionality, accessibility, and flow across the mobile, desktop, and web platforms, TD Ameritrade offers an experience that is as consistent as it gets.

Recent enhancements to E*TRADE’s mobile platform brought it closer in the running for best broker for mobile this year, while Interactive Brokers boasts the most sophisticated mobile platform available.That being said, TD Ameritrade simply offers the best mobile package overall. This overall strength is due to the widest offerings of asset classes available, access to highly regarded customer service, premium research, powerful screening features, calculators with backtesting capabilities, and tools to assess your overall financial situation—all with no balance requirements and low, transparent pricing,

Interactive Brokers: Best Broker for Advanced Traders and Best Broker for International Trading

Why We Chose It

With the closest competition still well behind it in these two categories, Interactive Brokers (IBKR) repeats as our top broker for both advanced day traders and for international traders due to its breadth of global assets and advanced analytical tools and calculators.

Superior order execution

Contingent orders for every conceivable situation

Unparalleled range of investable foriegn and domestic assets

Low margin interest rates

Trader Workstation (TWS) is very powerful and highly customizable

IBKR’s SmartRouting not available to IBKR Lite clients

TWS can be difficult to learn

No backtesting of custom trading algorithms or automated trading

Interactive Brokers’ modest fee-based pricing is tiered and can be a bit confusing

Overview

The company was founded in 1978 by its current Chairman, Thomas Peterffy, under the name T.P. & Co. The company pioneered the use of computers in trading, but it wasn’t until 1993 that Interactive Brokers Inc. was incorporated as a US broker-dealer. Now it is one of the most complete brokers in the industry. With access to 150 markets, trading in stocks, options, futures, currencies, bonds, funds, crypto, and more supported in 200 countries, and funding methods available in 24 currencies, IBKR is the best international broker, hands down.

To maintain a large gap over the competition, the company is constantly innovating. More notable enhancements of late include a market rate interest paid on uninvested cash, the IBKR GlobalTrader mobile app, and the addition of fractional shares trading for European shares and ETFs.

International traders can access financial markets and all assets on the desktop, web, and mobile versions including both the IBKR mobile and the IBKR GlobalTrader app. TWS is a superbly designed platform that brings technical analysis, social sentiment, fundamental research, and financial calculators together in a way that equips users to capitalize on price inefficiencies better than any other platform we reviewed.

tastyworks: Best Broker for Options

Why We Chose It

We chose tastyworks as the best options trading platform because of the way it optimizes tools and content to suit the needs of its options-focused client base. Moreover, tastyworks has set up its options pricing with caps that make it the lowest cost brokerage for high volume, high frequency option traders.

Capped commission structure for options

Highly regarded tools for analyzing and monitoring options trades

Superb options-specific content and educational material

Recent dashboard improvements make for an even better trading experience

Follow Feed feature allows users to follow trades of tastyworks’ TV celebrities

Limited investment options

Few investing and retirement resources

Weak portfolio analytics

No news or fundamental analysis

No fractional shares trading

Overview

Tastyworks maintains its stance as the best broker for options because of its intuitive delivery of an industry-best mix of options-focused tools and content. Launched by tastytrade in 2017, tastyworks was created by the same people that created and developed TD Ameritrade’s highly regarded thinkorswim® application.

Tastyworks delivers very competitive fees for options trading, with standout features like commission caps for large lot sizes, as well as the absence of any commissions when closing positions. Fortunately for tastyworks users, these low commissions do not come with a platform that delivers poor options analytics, inefficient platform workflow, or slow trade execution. In fact, the tastyworks platform brings all of these elements together in a manner that is among the best of all the companies we reviewed.

Tastyworks has acted on customer demand for social trading capabilities by allowing users to follow individual traders in real time and enabling them to both view and replicate strategies employed by other traders. Although tastyworks still provides top-notch customer service, a capped fee structure on options trades, and superb options-related educational and trading content, our updated methodology punishes them for the lack of key research features and limited mobile charting capabilities. A company representative did inform us that they are working on these issues, but any enhancements come too late to keep tastyworks from giving up its hold on our best broker for advanced options traders and best broker for mobile options traders to Interactive Brokers and TD Ameritrade, respectively.

Final Verdict

As the Federal Reserve’s focus has switched from promoting growth in a post-COVID world to fighting the devastating effects of elevated inflation, 2022 has taught a new generation of traders that markets can actually undergo cycles of high volatility. While all online brokers make money on the trading activity of their client base, either directly or indirectly, the best brokerage platforms provide strong customer support, robust research and analytical tools, expansive education content, a wide variety of available assets, and an abundance of account types, all with a transparent fee structure and limited gamification tactics.

Based on our exhaustive review of the top online brokers, we determined that Fidelity not only outshines the competition when it comes to ETF investing and low costs, but is simply the best brokerage overall. Beginners and experienced investors alike will find TD Ameritrade’s trading platform and breadth of resources to be advanced while remaining intuitive, along with a mobile experience that is best-in-class. Tastyworks’ platform is also intuitive enough for newcomers and the educational and market content is hard to beat, but only if you plan to make options trading your focus. Finally, when you’re ready to bring your trading to the most advanced platform available with access to the most international markets by far, the experience offered by Interactive Brokers is unmatched.

What Are Options?

An options contract gives the holder the right—but not the obligation—to buy or sell the underlying asset at a set price on or before a certain date. There are two primary types of options: A call option gives you the right to buy a stock, while a put option gives you the right to sell a stock. The strike price (aka exercise price) is the price at which you buy or sell the stock should you opt to exercise the option. The expiration date is when the options contract expires and becomes worthless. Because options derive their value from underlying assets, they belong to the group of securities known as derivatives.

How Do You Start Trading Options?

Investors use options to hedge risk or to speculate. To get started, you will need a brokerage account that’s approved for options trading. If you already have a brokerage account with a broker that supports options, you can fill out an application to enable options. After you provide details about your investment objectives, trading experience, and financial situation (e.g., annual income, employment info, net worth, and total net worth), the broker will review your application and either approve or deny it. If you are approved, the broker will let you know which options level you’re approved to trade. If your current broker doesn’t support options (or you want to try a different broker), you can apply for options trading after your standard brokerage account is approved. Depending on your broker and options strategy, you may also need approval for margin privileges.

Once you are approved for options trading, the next step is to decide which options you want to trade. The type of options contract you trade depends on the direction you expect the underlying stock to move:

After that, you need to pick the option strike price. Options quotes (aka an «option chain» or «matrix») list the available strike prices, which are based on the underlying stock’s price. The strike price you pick reflects where you think the stock’s price will move during the option’s lifetime. You also have to choose an option time frame: the expiration date after which the option will expire and become worthless. Expiration dates range from days to months to years. In general, the shorter the time frame, the riskier the option.

How Much Money Do You Need to Trade Options?

What Should You Consider When Choosing an Options Trading Platform?

While costs are one consideration when choosing an options broker and trading platform, there are other factors to weigh. If you are a new trader, it will be helpful to have a broker that offers substantial educational offerings—such as articles, videos, and webinars. Intermediate and advanced traders will want a robust trading platform and a full suite of options-specific trading tools and resources.

The commission structure for options trades tends to be more complicated than for stock trades. Until the commission cuts that swept the industry in the fall of 2019, most brokers charged a fee for each leg of an options spread plus a per-contract commission. The per-leg fees, which made 2- and 4-legged spreads expensive, have for the most part been eliminated industry-wide. We are also seeing some brokers place caps on commissions charged for certain trading scenarios.

Investors with fairly large portfolios can also take advantage of portfolio margining at some brokers. This is a practice that assesses the total risk inherent in a portfolio that contains stocks and derivatives. Investors with large portfolios can use portfolio margining to reduce the size of the margin loan.

What Kind of Options Trader Are You?

The first and most important piece of information to consider before selecting an options trading account is what kind of trader you are. What is your trading style and risk appetite? Which tools would you like to have handy?

If you’re just getting started with options trading, the quality of education and help offered by your broker is important. Frequent traders and those who trade a large number of contracts will be more sensitive to commissions and fees, so check out your prospective broker’s charges and make sure you understand them.

The Complete Guide to Choosing an Online Stock Broker

Fees, platform features and security are some key considerations

Profitable investing requires you use a brokerage service that aligns with your investing goals, educational needs and learning style. Especially for new investors, selecting the best online stock broker that fits your needs can mean the difference between an exciting new income stream and frustrating disappointment.

While there’s no sure-fire way to guarantee investment returns, there is a way to set yourself up for success by selecting the online brokerage that best suits your needs. In this guide, we’ll break down everything you should look for in your ideal brokerage, from the obvious (like whether or not the platform allows you to trade the securities you’re interested in) to the not-so-obvious (like how easy it is to get support from an actual human when you need it).

Key Takeaways

Click Play to Learn How to Pick a Broker

Step 1: Know Your Needs

Before you start clicking on brokerage ads, take a moment to hone in on what’s most important to you in a trading platform. The answer will be slightly different depending on your investment goals and where you are in the investment learning curve.

If you’re just starting out, you may prioritize features like basic educational resources, comprehensive glossaries, easy access to support staff, and the ability to place practice trades before you start playing with real money.

If you have some investment experience already under your belt, but you’re looking to get serious, you may want more high-level education and opinion-based resources authored by professional investors and analysts, as well as a good selection of fundamental and technical data.

A truly experienced investor, perhaps someone that’s executed hundreds of trades already but is looking for a new brokerage, is going to prioritize advanced charting capabilities, conditional order options, and the ability to trade derivatives, mutual funds, commodities, and fixed-income securities, as well as stocks.

Be honest with yourself about where you are right now in your investing journey and where you want to go. Are you looking to establish a retirement fund and focus on passive investments that will generate tax-free income in an IRA or 401(k)? Do you want to try your hand at day-trading but don’t know where to start? Do you like the idea of tweaking and tailoring your own portfolio, or are you willing to pay a professional to ensure it’s done right?

Depending on which path you want to follow, there may be many more questions you’ll need to answer along the way as you gain experience and refine your goals. For now, however, start with these four crucial considerations to help you determine which of the brokerage features we discuss below will be most important to you. To help get those analytical juices flowing, we’ve included several sample questions under each broader topic:

Are You an Active or Passive Investor?

Do you want to be super hands-on and execute day or swing trades? Do you see yourself eventually leaving the 9-to-5 grind and becoming a full-time investor? Or, instead, do you want to find a few solid investments to hold for the long haul with little or no day-to-day interaction?

What Kind of Trades Do You Want to Execute?

Are you going to be the type of investor that knows what they want to do and just needs a platform that makes it easy and quick to execute trades, or do you want a broker with a broader range of resources to help you identify opportunities? What kind of securities are you focused on? Stocks, mutual funds, ETFs? If you are more advanced, do you also want to trade options, futures, and fixed-income securities? What about margin trading? Do you need access to conditional orders, extended-hours trading, and automated trading options?

What Kind of Help Do You Want?

Do you want to go the DIY route, learn how to interpret charts and financial data to find and execute your own trades, or would you prefer to hire a pro? If you want to do it yourself, where are you on the learning curve? What sort of resources will you need to further your knowledge? Will you need easy access to support personnel, or are you able to learn what you need to know through online educational resources? Are you happy to execute trades online, or will you want to call in to have a broker assist you with the process?

What Are Your Investing Goals?

Why are you choosing to invest? Are you trying to supplement your regular income to improve your current standard of living? Is there a specific event or expense you want to fund? Do you intend for this to eventually become your primary income source? Are you trying to build up retirement savings and, if so, do you already have a retirement account or will you want to open a new one with your chosen brokerage?

There are no wrong answers to these questions. Be honest with yourself about how much time, energy, and effort you’re willing and able to put into your investments. Your answers may change over time, and that’s ok. Don’t try to anticipate all your needs and goals for the rest of your life. Just start with where you are right now.

Step 2: Narrow the Field

Now that you have a clear idea of what your investment goals are and what basic services you’ll look for in your ideal brokerage, it’s time to whittle down your options a bit. While there are certain brokerage features that will be more important for some investors than for others, there are a few things any reputable online brokerage should have. With such a wide range of available options, checking on these basic necessities is a great way to narrow the field quickly.

Stock Broker Regulation and Trust

Is the Brokerage a Member of the Securities Investor Protection Corporation (SIPC)?

There will typically be some kind of notation or disclaimer at the bottom of the home page. You can quickly look up the brokerage on the SIPC website.

Is the Brokerage a Member of the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA)?

This should also be very clearly noted in an easy-to-find location. You can look up brokerages on FINRA’s BrokerCheck website.

Is the Brokerage Covered by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC)?

Investment products—such as brokerage or retirement accounts that invest in stocks, bonds, options, and annuities—are not FDIC insured, because the value of investments cannot be guaranteed. If the brokerage offers CDs, Money Market Deposit Accounts (MMDAs), checking, or savings accounts, however, they should be fully backed by the FDIC.

What Kind of Insurance Do They Provide to Protect You in Case the Company Fails?

Is There Any Kind of Guarantee of Protection Against Fraud?

Will the company reimburse you for losses resulting from fraud? Make sure you double-check what the brokerage requires of you in order for you to be reimbursed. Find out if you have to provide any documentation or take specific precautions to protect yourself.

What Are Current Customers Saying?

Try searching online for consumer reviews of the brokerage, using keywords like «insurance claim,» «fraud protection» and «customer service.» Of course, online reviews should typically be taken with a grain of salt – some people just like to complain. However, if there are several users from different sites all lodging the same complaint then you may want to investigate further.

Online Security and Account Protection

It’s important to know how well a brokerage helps you protect your information.

Does the Brokerage Website Offer Two-Factor Authentication?

Do you have the option of activating a security feature in addition to your password? Common options can include answering security questions, receiving unique, time-sensitive codes via text or email, or using a physical security key that slots into your USB port.

What Kind of Technology Does the Broker Use to Keep Your Account Safe?

Find out if the broker uses encryption or «cookies,» and if it clearly explains how it uses them to protect your account information and how they work.

Does the Company Ever Sell Customer Information to Third-Parties (like Advertisers)?

The answer should definitely be no.

Brokerage Account Offerings

Since the types of tools you need will depend on your goals, you should also do a quick check for the following items to weed out brokerages that simply won’t meet your needs.

What Kinds of Accounts Does the Broker Offer Besides Standard (Taxable) Investment Accounts?

For example, if you have dependents, find out if you can open an Education Savings Account (ESA) or a custodial account for your child or other dependents.

Can You Open a Retirement Account?

Look into whether the broker offers Roth or traditional retirement accounts and if you can roll over an existing 401k or IRA.

Are There Different Products for Different Investing Goals?

For example, find out if the broker offers managed accounts. Also, find out if there investment minimums for different types of accounts.

Can You Manage Retirement Accounts for Employees Through the Brokerage?

This may apply if you’re a small business owner. These types of accounts include SIMPLE or SEP IRAs.

Does the Brokerage Offer Self-Directed IRAs or Solo 401k Options?

This applies if the only employee in your small business is you.

Step 3: Figure Out the Fees

While there may be other things that matter more to you than fees, you should start out with a pretty clear idea of how much you’ll pay to use any particular brokerage.

For some, a small premium may be justifiable if the platform offers features that its cheaper competitors lack. In general, however, you want to lose as little of your investment returns as possible to accounting fees and trading commissions.

By starting with the bottom line, you can easily determine which stockbrokers are too pricey to consider and which simply aren’t compatible with the type of investment activity you’re focused on.

Broker Account Fees

Does the Broker Charge a Fee for Opening an Account?

Is There a Deposit Minimum?

Are There Any Annual or Monthly Account Maintenance Fees?

If so, are they waived for larger accounts or is there an easy way to avoid them even if your account balance is small?

Does the Broker Offer Access to a Trading Platform as Part of Their Free Membership?

If you’re just starting out, the free platform may suit your needs perfectly.

Is There a Pro or Advanced Trading Platform That Is Pay-to-Play?

If you’re a more advanced investor, it’s important to know whether or not you’ll need to pay to upgrade your account to access tools and resources that are up to your speed. Some advanced platforms are free for customers who agree to place a minimum number of trades per year or invest a minimum amount.

What Are the Margin Rates?

Margin trading is only for very experienced investors who understand the risks involved. If you’re a new investor, this point won’t apply to you.

What’s the Minimum Loan Amount and Account Balance?

Most brokerages will offer lower interest rates for larger amounts, but don’t let that be the reason you borrow more than you should.

Trading Commissions

Do Trading Commissions Depend on How Much You Have Invested Through the Brokerage or How Often You Trade?

For example, some brokerages determine trading commissions based on the account size, while others offer a reduced commission to customers who trade a certain volume per quarter.

Make sure you look at the prices that will most likely apply to you based on your anticipated account balance and trading activity.

Are There Different Commission Rates for Different Securities?

If you plan on trading more than stocks, make sure you know what the fees are to trade options, bonds, futures, or other securities.

What Is the Minimum Investment for Mutual Funds or ETFs?

Make sure that mutual funds that allow you to buy and sell for free (often called No Transaction Fee, or NTF, funds) don’t charge other types of fees instead. Mutual funds often come with a number of different kinds of expenses, some of which can sneak up on you. Make sure you review the prospectus of any fund you’re considering to ensure you understand all the costs involved.

Does the Brokerage Offer Any Free or Reduced-Price Trades?

The number of ‘bonus’ trades you receive may depend on your account balance, so make sure you check on what’s offered for the account level that would apply to you. Also, be sure to check on what kinds of trades qualify for the discount—if it’s just for stocks and if ETFs, options, or fixed-income securities count.

Is the Commission Schedule Conducive to the Kind of Trading You’d Be Doing?

Some brokerages increase their commission rates after a certain number of trades. If this is the case, customers that focus on passive, buy-and-hold investing reap the most benefits.

Conversely, some brokerages offer reduced commissions after a certain number of trades in any given quarter, so active traders are rewarded for using the platform more often.

If the Broker Offers Advisory Services, How Much Do They Cost?

If you’re not looking to manage your own portfolio for whatever reason, make sure you pay attention to advisor fees very closely.

Step 4: Test the Broker’s Platform

While any brokerage should have a pretty decent description of what kinds of tools and resources their trading platform offers, sometimes the best way to assess platform quality is to give it a test drive. For brokers that allow you to open an account for free, it may even be worth the effort to go through the signup process just to access the trading platform if that’s what’s necessary.

Whether the brokerage has a web-based platform that anyone can access or a free downloadable platform that requires no-strings signup, do what you can to access the tools you’d actually use for free.

Even if you’re a more advanced trader, and there’s no free way to play around with «Pro» tools, you can get a good idea of the quality of a brokerage’s offerings just by looking at its basic suite. If there’s nothing in the standard platform that seems promising, it’s unlikely the advanced platform will be worth your time either.

On the other hand, some companies offer a huge array of tools and resources with their free products, so don’t write off brokerages with only one platform just yet.

We’ve already spent a good amount of time narrowing down your choices based on price and basic account offerings. Now that we’ve finally gotten to the fun stuff, make sure you spend time looking at the features available in multiple areas.

Go through the motions of placing a trade to see how smoothly the process operates. Pull up multiple quotes for stocks and other securities, and click on every tab to see what kind of data the platform provides. You should also check out any available screeners or other tools provided to help you find investments that meet specific criteria.

Questions to Answer While Testing Platforms

What Types of Securities Can You Trade on the Platform?

You should already have ruled out any platforms that don’t allow you to trade the securities you’re interested in. Make sure this platform automatically allows you to trade preferred shares, IPOs, options, futures, or fixed-income securities. If you don’t see particular security on the platform, but you know that the brokerage supports it, try looking in your account settings, or doing a quick search, to see how you can activate those features and learn about permission requirements.

Are Quotes in Real-Time? Are They Streaming?

There will be multiple ways you can pull up a price quote for a given security, but not all of them will provide the most up-to-date data. Make sure you are aware of where you can find real-time streaming information to ensure your trades are well-timed.

Vanguard’s web-based platform, for example, provides real-time data in its Ticker Profile pages, but it requires manual refreshing. Simple quote-level data is delayed by 20 minutes or more. Schwab’s online quotes also require manual refreshing, but the downloadable StreetSmart Edge platform and its cloud-based counterpart both offer real-time streaming data.

Can You Set Up Customized Watchlists and Alerts?

If you’re going to be a more active trader, you’ll likely want to be able to receive alert notifications via text, in addition to email, and set up multiple watchlists based on different criteria.

Does the Platform Provide Screeners That You Can Customize to Find Stocks, ETFs, Mutual Funds, or Other Securities?

Even if you’re brand new and have no idea what any of the options actually mean, play around with the various parameters to get an idea of how easy the tools are to use. A good platform will be intuitively organized and easy to operate.

What Kinds of Orders Can You Place?

Go through the motions of placing a trade and take a look at what types of orders are offered. A basic platform should offer at least market, limit, stop, and stop limit. A better platform will also allow you to place trailing stop orders, or market-on-close orders (which execute at the price the security reaches at the market closing).

If you’re looking to make relatively few trades, and you’re not interested in day or swing trading, a basic selection of order types should be fine. If you’re looking to get into the nitty-gritty of stock trading, however, you should look for a wider selection. If you’re more advanced, you should look for the ability to place conditional orders that allow you to set up multiple trades with specific triggers that will execute automatically when your specified conditions are met.

Do You Have Control Over Order Timing and Execution of Trades?

A basic platform should at least allow you to place trades that are good-for-day (meaning they can be executed at any time during trading hours) or good-until-canceled (which keeps the order for up to 60 days until it is executed or you cancel it).

A more advanced platform will allow you to place limit orders with some more variability, such as fill-or-kill (which automatically cancels the order if it is not entirely filled immediately) or Immediate or cancel (which automatically cancels the order if it isn’t at least partially filled right away).

Can You Trade in Extended Hours?

Stock and ETF trades take place outside of normal market hours of 9:30 a.m. – 4 p.m. EST, the in pre-market and after-hours periods. Each brokerage has its own definition of the specific time periods these Extended Hours sessions occupy.

Not all platforms allow you to trade during extended hours, and some only allow trading during after hours, but not during pre-market hours. You may be charged a fee for extended hours trading, so make sure you review the terms of those trades to make sure you aren’t caught unawares.

Again, for new investors, this feature may not be too important. For more advanced traders or those who are looking to be very active, however, reviewing a brokerage’s extended hours trading policy is crucial.

Charting Features

Now that you’ve played around with the platform a bit, take a look at the charting capabilities to explore the tools at your disposal. Pay attention to what kinds of data you can plot, how easy it is to switch between charting technical studies and reviewing fundamental or market data, and what you can customize and save for later reference.

What Technical Indicators Are Available on the Chart?

In general, the more the better. At the very least, you should be able to plot basic indicators like volume, RSI, simple moving averages, Bollinger bands, MACD, and stochastics. If any of these basic indicators are missing, it’s time to move on. You should also be able to plot at least a few company events, like earnings reports, stock splits, and dividend payments.

Can You Compare Different Stocks and Indices on the Same Chart?

Can you Draw on the Chart to Create Trend Lines, Free-form Diagrams, Fibonacci Circles, and Arcs, or Other Mark-Ups?

Does the Platform Have a Trading Journal or Other Means of Saving Your Work?

Whether you’re learning how to read charts or are a professional trader who takes notes to keep yourself on track, having a way to customize and store your charts is a hugely useful tool. Related questions include:

Other Options

Remember that some of these options may only be available on a Pro or Advanced platform. If you’re an advanced active trader, you’ll likely want a broker that offers all of these options. If you’re a more passive trader, or you’re just not looking to pay a premium for bells and whistles you’re not ready for, sticking to a free basic platform is just fine.

Does the Website or Platform Allow Paper Trading?

Paper trading is a way for investors to practice placing and executing trades without actually using money. It’s a great way for aspiring active investors to practice and for investors of all experience levels to test out new strategies and hone their skills without risking losses.

Does the Platform Allow Backtesting?

Another way to test out strategies and get comfortable with the process before putting cash on the line, backtesting allows you to simulate a trade based on the historical performance of your chosen security. It’s a way of placing a hypothetical, retroactive trade and then seeing what would have happened had you executed it in real life.

Step 5: How Well Does the Stock Broker Educate Its Clients?

While a useful and useable trading platform is crucial, you should also take the time to peruse the brokerage’s educational offerings and try out the search function.

If you’re a new investor, you need to be able to search for terms you don’t know or find advice on how to interpret data. If there’s a topic you’ve been wondering about or a metric you don’t completely understand, do a trial run using the search function and see if you can find the information you need quickly and efficiently.

Remember, what’s intuitive and user-friendly for one investor may be a nightmarish maze of fruitless search queries for another, so it’s important to find a platform that you can work with.

Once you’ve spent 20 minutes or so cruising a platform, you should be able to answer the following questions pretty easily. If you can’t, and a quick search of the site for specific answers doesn’t yield the necessary information, it’s likely a sign that the brokerage’s platform is not for you.

Stock Broker’s Quality and Usability

All the educational resources in the world are useless if you can’t access them easily. A good platform or website should provide a wide range of educational offerings, in multiple mediums, to make sure customers are able to quickly and easily find the information they need in a format that works for their learning style. Before we dive into the specific types of educational resources you should expect from a good brokerage, let’s first make sure those resources are user-friendly.

What Types of Educational Offerings Does the Broker Provide?

Whether it offers videos, podcasts, user forums, or written articles, the format needs to work for you.

Where Does the Information Come From?

If the broker syndicates work from other sites, make sure those sites are reputable. If the site has a blog or other contributor content, then make sure the contributing authors have experience and authority you can trust.

How Easy and Intuitive Is the Site or Platform to Navigate?

Make sure getting from a research page to the trading screen is a simple process. You don’t want to feel like you’re clicking in circles. Make sure different topics are easy to locate on the site.

Does the Broker Offer Resources for Beginners?

These can include glossaries or how-to articles, fundamental analysis, portfolio diversification, how to interpret technical studies, and other beginner topics.

How Effective Is the Platform’s Search Function?

You can figure this out by typing in a common investing term or searching for topics you have questions about. How quickly was the search function able to retrieve the information you needed? Was this information immediately visible, or did you have to click through a few pages to get to it?

Analytical Resources

Is There Ample Analysis for Each Security?

This should include analyst ratings from multiple sources, real-time news items, and applicable market and sector data.

Is There Sufficient Fundamental Data Available?

Stock profiles, for example, should include historical data for the issuing company, like earnings reports, financial statements (like cash flow, income statements, and balance sheets), dividend payments, stock splits or buybacks, and SEC filings. There should also be information about any insider trading activity.

Is there market data for the U.S. and foreign markets? What about the industry and sector data? How deeply are you able to dive into the big-picture conditions surrounding market performance?

Step 6: Ease of Depositing and Withdrawing Funds

Especially if you’re investing to supplement your regular income, it’s important to know how easy it is to move money in and out of your brokerage account. If you’re looking to employ a more set-it-and-forget-it strategy, being able to withdraw funds may not be as big of a concern. Still, life often throws us things we don’t expect, so it’s prudent to review the deposit, withdrawal, and funds settlement terms of any brokerage you consider.

Depositing Funds

How Can You Deposit Money Into Your Brokerage Account?

Find out if you can deposit funds via check, ACH transfer, wire, or credit card (this isn’t necessarily recommended, but it may still be an option).

Make sure you verify whether or not there are any fees associated with these options – though most brokerages don’t charge for deposits.

How Long Does It Take for Deposited Funds to Settle?

If you’ve spotted an amazing trade entry but you don’t have enough cash in your account to execute it, settling times will suddenly become very important. Verify how many days it takes for deposited funds to be available for investment.

Settlement times may vary depending on the source of the deposit. Note that you may see longer settlement times if you maintain a low balance or don’t trade very often.

Does the Brokerage Offer Regular Checking or Savings Accounts That Can Facilitate Swifter Transfers?

If the brokerage offers regular checking and savings accounts that are free (and FDIC insured), it might be easier to leave funds in a linked banking account so that they can be moved more quickly to your brokerage account if and when you need to bulk up your investment account.

Withdrawing Funds

How Long Does It Take Funds From the Sale of Your Investments to Settle?

Make sure you check on settlement times for the different types of securities you will be trading.

What About Dividend or Interest Distributions?

How quickly are those funds available for investment? For withdrawal?

How Easy Is It to Withdraw Funds From Your Brokerage Account?

Find out if you can withdraw via ACH transfer, wire, or check and how long it will take for those funds to reach your bank account. Also, check to find out if there’s a fee for withdrawal.

Does the brokerage offer the option of a debit or ATM card attached to your account? Sometimes this is offered for a brokerage account, and other times you need to open a linked checking or savings account to access this option. If you do have the option of a card, find out which ATMs can you use and if there are any fees associated with card use.

Step 7: Customer Service

By now, you’ve likely narrowed your options to one or two brokerages that really blow you away in terms of resources, features, and usability. Whether you’ve found your perfect platform or you’re still on the fence, take just a few more minutes to peruse the Help section of the brokerages you’re considering.

If you’re a new investor and you’re feeling overwhelmed, make sure you can get in touch with the service staff quickly and easily. If you’re technically challenged, make sure the tech support team is easy to contact and available round the clock.

While these items won’t make or break your brokerage decision, it’s still important to ensure you understand how to get help when and if you need it.

Step 8: Get Going and Next Steps

We know it can be tempting to just sign up for whichever brokerage has the most aggressive ad campaign, but successful investing requires attention to detail long before you place your first trade.

If you’re looking to make trading a long-term hobby, a future career, or just a means of bulking up your retirement fund, then it’s important that you use the tools and resources that will set you up for a successful and enjoyable experience.

By following this in-depth guide, you’ve hopefully found the platform that will best serve your needs, whatever they might be. You can find help sorting through the different brokers on our stock broker reviews page.

Once you’ve singled out your best brokerage, it’s time to get started. Don’t just set up an account and move on to the next thing. Really dive in. Use the educational and research resources available to you, start outlining your investment strategy, and make the most of all the tools at your disposal. You’ve spent valuable time identifying which features matter most to you—now it’s time to put them to work.

Stock Trading for Beginners: An Introduction

Are you, like so many others, looking to start trading stocks online?

Welcome to our introduction guide on how to trade stocks. In an attempt to help our readers perform at the top of their ability, we want to share all our top trading tips for beginners and intermediate traders.

Our team hopes that this will help create a safer and more fair trading environment for everyone in the UK. This also means that we’re keeping our guide honest and transparent, not shying away from highlighting the truth about stocks and the risks associated with trading.

If you’re not sure what stocks are or how you best trade them, you’ll find all the answers you need below.

In This Guide

Stock Trading for Beginners

The Basics of Stock Trading

With the intention of being as thorough as possible, we’ll start with the very basics of stock trading and stocks as an instrument.

Some of you might already have an understanding of stocks, and if so, then by all means skip to the next section of the guide. Or read through the following paragraphs to refresh your memory.

The idea of stock trading is that you buy and sell stocks intending to make a profit in the process. There are several ways one can do this and we aim to provide a better understanding of the fundamental aspects in this guide.

What is a Stock?

A stock, also known as a share or equity, is a financial security that represents the fractional ownership of a company. The stock gives the owner a right to some of the said companies profits and assets.

Company profits are shared with stockholders through dividends equal to the number of stocks that each person holds.

It also provides the owner with the right to sell and trade the stocks on stock exchanges and, in some cases, directly with others.

What is a Stock?

What’s a Stock Exchange?

A publicly listed company is a company that’s listed on a major stock exchange somewhere in the world. Almost every country in the world has its own security exchanges, including stock exchanges, and there are some regional exchanges as well.

The two most well-known stock exchanges are both based on Wall Street in New York City, namely, The New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) and Nasdaq. Other major stock exchanges include:

What’s a Stock Exchange?

How do you Trade Stocks?

Before we can start to provide more hands-on trading tips, we have to look closer at the different ways one can trade stocks online.

This will determine which type of broker you should sign up for, the amount of capital you need available, as well as the strategies you’re going to implement. Therefore, you must understand the most popular forms of online stock trading.

On Stock Exchanges

Most stocks are, in fact, not traded using online brokers. Instead, they’re traded on the stock exchanges, usually by major investment firms and banks.

The reason why most stocks are sold this way is because of the massive number of stocks sold in most trades. Since banks can often place several million pounds on each trade, they have the ability to trade huge numbers of stocks.

However, for retail stock traders and professional day traders, online brokers are still the more efficient and superior alternative.

Derivatives Trading

Online stock trading is rather self-explanatory. It entails trading stocks using an online platform which, in turn, is provided through an online broker.

In many cases, these brokers do not provide Direct Market Access (DMA), meaning you will trade derivatives and instruments based on underlying securities instead.

One of the main benefits of derivatives is that you can pick your investment amount. For example, in order to buy stock in Tesla, you have to pay the price for a full stock which is several hundred pounds.

When buying the Tesla stock as a derivative, on the other hand, you can usually invest as much or as little as you please.

Today, the two most popular stock derivatives to trade online are:

Contract for Differences (CFD)

A CFD is a derivative based on an underlying asset, such as a stock, a commodity or even a currency pair. These can be traded with most online stock brokers and it gives the broker a chance to offer stocks from all over the world, creating their own mini-stock exchange with stocks aimed at their target group.

CFD trading also provides the option of using margin and leverage to increase one’s exposure in each position. The CFD trading platforms are also created in a way that allows for both long and short positions, but more about that shortly.

Spread Betting

Spread betting can best be described as a combination of stock trading and online betting, hence the name. It involves the trader betting on whether he or she believes the value of a stock (or other security) will increase or decrease in value.

Due to its similarities to regular betting, spread betting normally feels more attainable than regular trading for those that have some experience with sports betting. Moreover, since it’s classified as betting and not trading in the UK, it is completely tax-free.

Finding a Broker

To learn the basics of stock trading, you need access to a platform that allows you to practice trading. This is especially important if you’re a complete beginner.

Back in the day, one had to open a trading account and risk real money to practice, but today, one can use a demo account that is provided by all the top stockbrokers in the UK, which brings us onto the next topic.

Finding the right broker is going to be one of the most important things you do in your trading career. In many ways, the broker will act as an extension of you, and to perform at the best of your ability, you need to be picky in your decision.

This is where TradingGuide.co.uk enters the picture.

This site intends to educate UK online traders, as well as to embrace safe and regulated trading. Therefore, our team is tirelessly reviewing the market, auditing brokers, and creating recommendations.

Please read more about our in-depth reviewing process on the About Us page.

We follow very strict requirements when reviewing brokers, and so should you. The most important factors to take into account are:

1. Safety & Licensing

The main concern when trading is safety. Some of the risks involved in stock trading cannot be avoided, such as the risk of losing any or all invested funds. However, there are also some risks that can and should be avoided.

By only relying on regulated brokers with licenses issued by the FCA – and preferably multiple other governing bodies – you ensure that your personal information and funds are kept safe.

It also ensures that the broker has to offer fair trading conditions and that they follow the European Union’s trading directive, MiFID II.

Naturally, learning the right trading strategies also help minimise risk, but more about that in the next section.

2. Fees & Commission

Trading for real money is never free. Even when trading is marketed as completely free, there is usually a small print listing the exceptions.

With the fact that online brokers are profitable companies, they have to make money somehow. They do this through various broker fees, mainly commission and spread.

Generally speaking, commission is charged on long-term investments and positions, usually directly on the associated exchange. Spread, on the other hand, is what most online derivatives brokers charge.

The commission is a straight fee, typically a percentage, that’s added to every trade. Spread is the difference between the buy and sale price of an asset.

3. Assets & Platforms

Maybe it goes without saying, but you have to find a broker that offers the assets and instruments you want to trade, on a platform that you feel comfortable using.

Today, there are several trading platforms offered. Some are developed in-house by the brokers themselves, while others are third-party platforms offered by several brokers. In our opinion, the best way to find the right platform is to use a demo account.

Regarding the assets, we believe that “the more, the merrier”. When trading stocks or any other assets, you want the ability to pick and choose which instruments to focus on.

By using a broker offering just 500 stocks, your options will be greatly limited.

Therefore, we encourage you to use a broker with at least a few thousand shares on offer. One of the great benefits of CFD and spread betting brokers is that they usually offer several markets, including stocks, and forex.

4. User Reviews

We strongly believe that you can’t base your broker pick solely on your own research and opinion.

Because of this, we always include user reviews from Trustpilot, the App Store, Google Play, and other similar platforms, when reviewing brokers. We encourage you to check the user reviews as well.

For your convenience, we collect millions of user reviews and share them in our guides and broker reviews. By doing this, we’re able to create the most transparent and accurate recommendations online.

Also, since we’re not able to filter the reviews, you can always rest assured that we remain unbiased about the brokers we cover.

Starting a Stock Trading Account

Once you’ve found a stockbroker that you want to start trading with, you need to register an account. Since brokers provide financial services, the registration process requires quite a few steps and is also regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA).

This means that the process is universal and that you follow the same steps to register a stockbroker account, regardless of which broker you pick. Now, there might be slight differences in the information you need to provide and the processing times, but the foundation of the process is still the same.

Using the links provided on this website, you will be redirected to the broker of your choice registration page. There, you will initiate the registration and get the process going. Many of the following steps are similar to registering accounts on social media platforms, thus, is something most of you are familiar with.

Also, please note that you can register a stockbroker account using either your computer (laptop or desktop) or a mobile device. Since most online stockbrokers’ platforms are web-based, all you need is a web browser to access them.

The first step of the actual registration involves you providing personal information that will serve as the base of your account. Keep in mind that this information will have to be verified, so ensure that you only provide accurate and up-to-date details.

The broker will, for example, ask for your full name, address, phone number, email address, etc. As you will be offered a financial service associated with risk, you will also provide information about your income and answer basic questions about financial markets and leveraged trading.

At this point, you have gained access to a very basic version of a trading account, and some brokers allow you to start using their demo accounts. However, to activate the account fully, you first need to verify your identity and your address.

To do this, you need to submit a copy of your ID (passport, driver’s license, or national ID) as well proof of residence, ie. a recent utility bill or a bank statement (no older than three months). These documents are verified manually and the processing time varies from a few minutes to 48 hours.

If you’re new to stock trading and investing, we recommend that you start by using a demo account. These accounts are replicas of actual trading accounts although you trade using virtual funds. That way there is no risk involved and you get a chance to practice trading.

Once you feel comfortable and want to get started, you need to make a deposit. All brokers implement something called a minimum deposit level that ranges from £0 to £500+, which has to be fulfilled to get started.

And that is it. You can now start trading shares with your chosen broker. A large part of the brokers we recommend are derivatives brokers (offering CFDs and spread betting), which means they are perfectly suitable for day and swing trading.

If you’re looking for a stock investment broker, please refer to our guide on the best stock investment brokers in the UK.

Getting Started Trading Stocks

Before we provide some useful insights into basic stock trading strategies, we want to emphasise that stock trading is very difficult.

The truth is that up to 89% of all retail, online traders lose money in the end. That means you have to be willing to either dedicate a lot of effort to mastering stock trading, or accept that you may never break even.

At the same time, we don’t want to discourage you from trading and the excitement that it offers. Just remember that it’s time-consuming undertaking and, if you put the work in, you can open doors to new ways of making profits, almost effortless.

Learn Stock Trading: Basic Strategies

When trading stocks online, you follow short-term trading strategies. Technically, most professional brokers end up developing their own strategies. And we encourage you to try and do the same.

With that said, you have to get started by learning the most basic strategies. Luckily, we live in a time where everyone has access to an endless resource of free information. By using sites like ours, online trading guides, videos, and other similar tools, you can learn almost everything there is to know about trading, for free.

In addition, there is a huge array of excellent trading books and physical courses that one can attend to learn to trade.

Although, before you get into that, you should understand the most basic trading methods.

Day Trading

To many, day trading is synonymous with a lavish lifestyle and endless amounts of money. As it’s often the case, the truth is far from that.

Day trading is a way to trade instruments and assets where positions are opened and closed within the same day, often within the same hour. Forex (currencies) and stocks are the two most popular markets for day traders.

As you can imagine, this type of trading requires a broad understanding of how financial markets operate, to predict short-term price movements. Therefore, learning to day trade is both tedious and difficult.

Although, for those that master day trading, there are endless opportunities to make profits.

Swing Trading

Swing trading is very similar to day trading, with the exception that the trader keeps its positions open for longer periods of times, often several days and weeks at a time.

According to most experts, this makes swing trading slightly easier to master than day trading. And therefore, potentially better suited for beginners.

One of the downsides with swing trading derivatives is that online stock brokers often take out an overnight fee, meaning you will have to pay a lot more to keep your positions open for longer than you would if you closed all your positions before the stock markets closed.

Long vs Short Trading

A long position (not to be confused with a long-term position) is a position placed with the prediction that an instrument will increase in value. A short position, on the other hand, is a trade where the trader predicts that the value of the said instrument will decrease in value.

When trading stocks as CFDs or partaking in spread betting online, it is as easy to place a long position as it is to place a short position. That is not the case when investing in stocks, since short positions become more complicated.

Having access to a platform that supports both long and short positions is always an asset. Just keep in mind that many professional traders rarely short instruments, since it’s associated with higher risks than long positions.

Leverage & Margins

Another fundamental factor of stock trading strategies online is the use of leverage and margin.

Leverage is basically a loan provided by your broker that’s used to increase your exposure on any position. Using leverage means that you increase your potential profits, while also increasing the potential losses.

Due to the increased risk associated with leveraged trading, there are strict regulations in place in all of Europe. For example, leverage is limited to 20:1 for major currency pairs and 10:1 for major stocks.

A few years back, negative balance protection was also implemented, saving traders from losing more money than they could afford.

NOTE: Leveraged trading is associated with high risk and should not be taken lightly. Only use leverage and margin if you understand the consequences and have performed a thorough analysis of the instrument you’re trading.

Long-term Investments

On the other side of the spectrum, we find traditional long-term investments. Technically, this is a whole other issue and market, which is why we’ve also covered the basics of long-term investments on this site.

There are many major differences between stock investments and trading. Namely, that you buy stocks and can keep them for years before selling them.

In addition, as a stock owner, you gain certain rights to be active in the company. For example, you will receive dividends and, in some cases, even a voting right when big company decisions are being made.

Our point is that long-term investments and trading are very different, even though you’re technically active on the same market and buying/selling the same instruments.

With that being said, many of the top online trading brokers also offer options to place longer investments, meaning you can combine short-term strategies with long-term investment plans.

Stocks Trading in Russia 2022 – Tutorial and Brokers

Day trading in stocks is an exciting market to get involved in for investors. Stocks are essentially capital raised by a company through the issuing and subscription of shares. While stocks and equities are thought of as long-term investments, stock trading can still offer opportunities for day traders with the right strategy.

The ability to short prices, or trade on company news and events, mean short-term trades can still provide trading opportunities.

This page will advise you on which stocks to look for when aiming for short-term positions to buy or sell (ideally you need highly liquid, and volatile stocks).

It will also offer you some invaluable rules for day trading stocks to follow. You’ll learn the how to pick stocks and when to trade them, as well as some intelligent trading strategies that could help you find trades – We also list where to buy stocks right now.

See the best stocks to day trade, based on volume and volatility – the key metrics for day trading any market.

Top 3 Stock Trading Brokers in Russia

Stock Trading Blog

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Stock Trading Opinions

Opinions and tips from professionals in the stock trading business.

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Why Day Trade Stocks?

Day trading stocks today is dynamic and exhilarating. On top of that, they are not complex to buy and sell. With the world of technology, the market is readily accessible.

The liquidity in markets means speculating on prices going up or down in the short term is absolutely viable.

Also, stocks are relatively straightforward to understand and follow.

Whilst day trading in the complex technical world of cryptocurrencies or forex may leave you scratching your head, you can get to grips with the triumphs and potential pitfalls of Google and Facebook far easier.

This means identifying which stocks suit online trading intraday hopefully won’t be as challenging as it is in other markets.

Day Trading vs Stock Trading

Before you start day trading stocks, you should consider whether it definitely suits your circumstances.

For example, intraday trading usually requires at least a couple of hours each day. One of those hours will often have to be early in the morning when the market opens.

Longer term stock investing, however, normally takes up less time. This is because you have more flexibility as to when you do your research and analysis.

In addition, intraday stock trading returns can exceed those of long-term investing. This in part is due to leverage.

How do you actually use this?

This allows you to borrow money to capitalise on opportunities (trade on margin).

However, with increased profit potential also comes a greater risk of losses.

On top of that, you will also invest more time into day trading for those returns.

You could also argue short-term trading is harder unless you focus on day trading one stock only.

This is because interpreting the stock ticker and spotting gaps over the long term are far easier. You also don’t have to rush to make decisions. However, this also means intraday trading can provide a more exciting environment to work in.

One major advantage of CFDs and spread betting over traditional equity investment is the ability to “go short“.

There is no easy way to make money in a falling market using traditional methods. Day traders, however, can trade regardless of whether they think the value will rise or fall.

Overall, there is no right answer in terms of day trading vs long-term stocks. Spotting trends and growth stocks in some ways may be more straightforward when long-term investing. Having said that, intraday trading may bring you greater returns (or greater losses).

Trading Platforms

The trading platform you use for your online trading will be a key decision. Do you need advanced charting? Can you automate your trading strategy? Can you trade the right markets, such as ETFs or Forex?

There are some important decisions to make when choosing your trading platform or stock broker, and many will depend on you and you trading style. Read more about choosing a stock broker here and trade today.

How To Trade Stocks

The best day trading stocks to utilise provide you with opportunities through price movements and an abundance of shares being traded.

This will enable you to enter and exit those opportunities swiftly. These factors are known as volatility and volume. You may be thinking ‘I’ve heard of day trading volatile stocks and volume before, but what does that really mean?’

Volume

Volume is concerned simply with the total number of shares traded in a security or market during a specific period. Each transaction contributes to the total volume. If just twenty transactions were made that day, the volume for that day would be twenty.

How is that used by a day trader making his stock picks? Volume acts as an indicator giving weight to a market move. If there is a sudden spike, the strength of that movement is dependant on the volume during that time period.

Put simply, the greater the volume, the more significant the move.

Using Volume

If you have a substantial capital behind you, you need stocks with significant volume. Whilst your brokerage account will likely provide you with a list of the top 20-25 stocks, one of the best day trading stocks tips is to broaden your search a little wider.

That way you can find opportunities that aren’t on every other trader’s radar. Look for stocks with a spike in volume.

If a stock usually trades 2.5 million shares daily, but you notice it has traded 6 million shares by 10 am, then this could be worth exploring. If your chosen platform fails to offer a rigorous screener for high volume stocks, utilise these alternatives:

Volatility

Volatility is concerned with the amount of risk/unpredictability in the size of changes in a security’s value. If it has a high volatility the value could be spread over a large range of values.

Ideally, short term trades require volatile stocks.

This would mean the price of the security could change drastically in a short space of time, making it ideal for the fast-moving day trader.

Whereas if it has a low volatility, the security’s value will remain relatively steady, offering less opportunity for a quick trade opportunity.

One way to establish the volatility of a particular stock is to use beta. The beta predicts the total volatility of a security’s returns against the returns of an appropriate benchmark (normally the S&P 500).

How To Find Stocks To Day Trade

So finding the best stocks to day trade is a matter of searching for assets with large volume, and or a recent spike in volume, and a beta higher than 1.0 (The higher the better – a more volatile stock).

Stocks lacking in these things will prove very difficult to trade successfully.

How you use these factors will impact your trading choices, and will depend on your strategies for day trading stocks. Profiting from a price that does not change is impossible.

Buyers and sellers create price movement, a lack of volume shows a lack of buyers and sellers.

Defensive stocks, while normally associated with lower volatility, may suddenly be in demand if a market panic causes a flight to safer investments, so volume and volatility may not always spring up in the obvious places.

Best Day Trading Stocks 2022

Now you have an idea of what to look for in a stock and where to find them. Below is a breakdown of some of the most popular day trading stock picks.

The most popular exchange-traded fund (ETF) is the S&P 500 (SPY). Regularly trading in excess of 100 million shares a day, the huge volume allows you to trade both small and large positions, depending on volatility.

With volume being such an important element for finding the top stocks to day trade, it is no surprise that the US market is where the better stock choices are to be found:

US Stocks

Best US Stocks For Day Trading

Stock	Symbol	Strength
Apple	APPL	Volume
Facebook	FB	Volume+Volatility
Microsoft	MSFT	Volume
Ford	F	Volume
Tesla	TSLA	Volatility
Google (Alphabet)	GOOG	Volume+Volatility
S and P	US 500	Volume+Volatility

In the UK, the stocks boasting highest volume offer the best day trading opportunities

UK Stocks

Best UK Stocks For Day Trading

Stock	Symbol	Strength
Barclays	BARC	Volume+Volatility
Lloyds Bank	LLOY	Volume+Volatility
Vodafone	VOD	Volume
BP	BP	Volume

The UK can often see a high beta (volatility) across a whole sector. House builders for example, all saw an increased beta figure on recent years, driven in part by the fears over any Brexit impact.

Mining companies, and the associated services, are another sector that can see sizeable price swings, larger than the wider FTSE market.

Alternatives

However, apart from the popular options above, there are also a number of other popular exchanges worth considering, including the Toronto Stock Exchange, Karachi Stock Exchange, Philippine Stock Exchange, Tokyo Stock Exchange, and the London Stock Exchange.

You could also start day trading Australian stocks, Chinese stocks, Japanese stocks, Canadian stocks, Indian stocks, plus a range of European stocks.

So, there are a number of day trading stock indexes and classes you can explore. Furthermore, you can find everything from cheap foreign stocks to expensive picks. All of the strategies and tips below can be utilised regardless of where you choose to day trade stocks.

Penny Shares

“Which penny stocks are best for day trading?” is a popular question we face. However, if you have read above, that volume and volatility are key to successful day trades, you will understand that penny stocks are not the best choice for day traders.

They are low volume (very little buying and selling) and this leads to a lack of volatility in the short term.

Volatility in penny stocks is often misleading as a small price change is large in percentage terms, but the fact is that most penny stocks end the day exactly where they started with no movement at all. It is impossible to profit from that.

Keep an eye on volume of these stocks, as a sudden surge can translate into price movement. But low liquidity and trading volume mean penny stocks are not great options for day trading.

Utilising leverage is one way to make trading stocks ‘cheaper’ but ensure you understand the increased risk that leverage brings before using it.

Stocks To Trade Today

Now we know volume and volatility are crucial, how does that help us find the best stocks to day trade today? Well, ‘Risers and Fallers’ tables are a good short cut to find active markets. It means something is happening, and that creates opportunity.

Most brokers will show a table of active shares, whether they call it ‘Risers/Fallers’ or ‘Most Traded Shares’, they should all point you to the most suitable opportunities for stock day trades.

When To Day Trade Stocks

Timing is everything in the day trading game. If you don’t know the best times to trade, you may struggle with day trading stocks for a living. With that in mind:

Patterns

Pennant

The pennant is often the first thing you see when you open up a pdf of chart patterns. It’s created simply by significant stock movement and then consolidation.

The converging lines bring the pennant shape to life. You should see a breakout movement taking place alongside the large stock shift.

You will then see substantial volume when the stock initially starts to move. Finally, the volume in the pennant section will decrease and then the volume at the breakout will spike.

Ascending Triangle

You will normally find the triangle appears during an upward trend and is regarded as a continuation pattern. Less often it is created in response to a reversal at the end of a downward trend.

Whenever they do occur, ascending triangles are bullish patterns (when the small black candlestick is followed by a big white candlestick that totally engulfs the previous candlestick).

Descending Triangle

Although often a bearish pattern, the descending triangle is a continuation of a downtrend. Less frequently it can be observed as a reversal during an upward trend.

Cup & Handle

Just a quick glance at the chart and you can gauge how this pattern got its name. The cup is a nice curved ‘U’ shape and the handle angles slightly down. Usually, the right-hand side of the chart shows low trading volume which can last for a significant length of time.

Head & Shoulders Top

Straightforward to spot, the shape comes to life as both trendlines converge. They come together at the peaks and troughs. The lines create a clear barrier. If the price breaks through you know to anticipate a sudden price movement.

You’ll find different stock patterns for day trading in every pdf you open. Rather than using everyone you find, get excellent at a few.

Strategy

The patterns above and strategies below can be applied to everything from small and microcap stocks to Microsoft and Tesla stocks.

Heikin-Ashi

If you like candlestick trading strategies you should like this twist. A candlestick chart tells you four numbers, open, close, high and low. But you use information from the previous candles to create your Heikin-Ashi chart.

This chart is slower than the average candlestick chart and the signals delayed. This is part of its popularity as it comes in handy when volatile price action strikes.

The strategy also employs the use of momentum indicators. A simple stochastic oscillator with settings (14,7,3) should do the trick. If you see that two candles, either bearish or bullish have fully completed on your daily chart, then you know the pattern is valid.

These charts, patterns and strategies may all prove useful when buying and selling traditional stocks. However, they may also come in handy if you are interested in the less well-known form of stock trading discussed below.

Penny Stocks

Every day thousands of people turn on their computers in the hope of day trading penny stocks online for a living. But what exactly are they?

Benefits & Drawbacks

Benefits

To help you decide whether day trading on penny stocks is for you, consider the benefits and drawbacks listed below.

Drawbacks

Unfortunately, many of the day trading penny stocks advertising videos fail to point out a number of potential pitfalls:

Spotting A Winner

As you can see above, penny stock reviews highlight a number of serious concerns when these instruments are used for intraday trading.

Perhaps then, focussing on traditional stocks would be a more prudent investment decision.

However, there are some individuals who trade penny stocks successfully. So, if you do want to join this minority club, you will need to make sure you know what a good penny stock looks like.

To do that, consider the following:

On top of that, when it comes to penny stocks for dummies, knowing where to look can also give you a head start. For example, the metals and mining sectors are well-known for the high numbers of companies trading in pennies.

Final Word on Day Trading Penny Stocks

However, if you are keen to explore further, there are a number of day trading penny stocks books and training videos available.

Stocks For Kids

This is a popular niche. Picking stocks for children. Here, the focus is on growth over the much longer term. “Day trading” does not really apply.

When looking for long term ‘buy and hold’ growth (and to pass down to future generations), the key test for any stock – is time.

Time filters almost everything, great ideas, great books, great music – the best of them ‘stand the test of time’. Stocks (or companies) are similar.

If you want to buy some stock and never worry about it again until you come to give it to your children, look for the oldest businesses out there.

Tech stocks are simply too new to know if they are ‘classics’ just yet. A company that has been running for 100 years has seen (and survived) more booms and busts than any hotshot trader. Let time be your guide.

Day Trading Stock Tips

From above you should now have a plan of when you will trade and what you will trade. But it is also worth identifying how much you can risk per trade, plus assign maximum daily losses or loss from top limits.

This discipline will prevent you losing more than you can afford while optimising your potential. So, think of these as general rules when you’re day trading stocks:

Tools

Education

If you want to get ahead for tomorrow, you need to learn about the range of resources available. It is particularly important for beginners to utilise the tools below:

Stock Picking Software

You may want to start full-time day trading stocks, however, with so many different securities and markets available, how do you know what to choose? Do you want to start day trading gold stocks, bank stocks, low priced stocks, or perhaps Hong Kong stocks?

This is where a stock picking service can prove useful. But what precisely does it do and how exactly can it help? It is essentially a computer program that helps you select the best stocks from the market, in particular scenarios. It can then help in the following ways:

Overall, such software can be useful if used correctly. It can swiftly create a stock watch list, allowing you to focus your time on crafting a strategy. However, it’s important to note such systems should only be used to supplement your strategy and not as comprehensive day trading stock advisors.

Demo Account

A day trading stock simulator that’s free is a fantastic way to learn about the markets.

So, how does it work? Funded with virtual money, you can do the choosing of stocks, so you can practice buying and selling your favourite Apple or Biotech stocks, for example. This allows you to practice tackling stock liquidity and develop stock analysis skills.

Because you practice against real historical data, you can develop specific strategies that will be best for the NASDAQ or NYSE, for example.

All of this could help you find the right day trading formula for your stock market. Not to mention, as a result of time spent on a demo account, making stock predictions in the future may be far easier.

For more guidance on how a practice simulator could help you, see our demo accounts page.

Final Word

Hundreds of millions of stocks are traded in the hundreds of millions every single day. This makes the stock market an exciting and action-packed place to be.

When you’re day trading, look for stock patterns that indicate encouraging volume and opportunistic volatility.

There are several user-friendly screeners to watch day trading stocks on and to help you identify which ones to trade. Savvy stock day traders will also have a clear strategy. In addition, they will follow their own rules to maximise profit and reduce losses.

Investing: An Introduction

A beginner’s guide to asset classes

James Chen, CMT is an expert trader, investment adviser, and global market strategist. He has authored books on technical analysis and foreign exchange trading published by John Wiley and Sons and served as a guest expert on CNBC, BloombergTV, Forbes, and Reuters among other financial media.

The investment landscape can be extremely dynamic and ever-evolving. But those who take the time to understand the basic principles and the different asset classes stand to gain significantly over the long haul.

The first step is learning to distinguish different types of investments and what rung each occupies on the risk ladder.

Key Takeaways

How to Invest In Stocks: A Beginner’s Guide

Understanding the Investment Risk Ladder

Here are the major asset classes, in ascending order of risk, on the investment risk ladder.

A cash bank deposit is the simplest, most easily understandable investment asset—and the safest. It not only gives investors precise knowledge of the interest that they’ll earn but also guarantees that they’ll get their capital back.

On the downside, the interest earned from cash socked away in a savings account seldom beats inflation. Certificates of deposit (CDs) are less liquid instruments, but they typically provide higher interest rates than those in savings accounts. However, the money put into a CD is locked up for a period of time (months to years), and there are potentially early withdrawal penalties involved.

Bonds

A bond is a debt instrument representing a loan made by an investor to a borrower. A typical bond will involve either a corporation or a government agency, where the borrower will issue a fixed interest rate to the lender in exchange for using their capital. Bonds are commonplace in organizations that use them to finance operations, purchases, or other projects.

Bond rates are essentially determined by interest rates. Due to this, they are heavily traded during periods of quantitative easing or when the Federal Reserve—or other central banks—raise interest rates.

Mutual Funds

Mutual funds are sometimes designed to mimic underlying indexes such as the S&P 500 or the Dow Jones Industrial Average. There are also many mutual funds that are actively managed, meaning that they are updated by portfolio managers who carefully track and adjust their allocations within the fund. However, these funds generally have greater costs—such as yearly management fees and front-end charges—that can cut into an investor’s returns.

Mutual funds are valued at the end of the trading day, and all buy and sell transactions are likewise executed after the market closes.

Many investment specialists advise their clients to diversity into a wide range of securities rather than focusing on just a few stocks.

Exchange-Traded Funds (ETFs)

Exchange-traded funds (ETFs) have become quite popular since their introduction back in the mid-1990s. ETFs are similar to mutual funds, but they trade throughout the day, on a stock exchange. In this way, they mirror the buy-and-sell behavior of stocks. This also means that their value can change drastically during the course of a trading day.

ETFs can track an underlying index such as the S&P 500 or any other basket of stocks with which the ETF issuer wants to underline a specific ETF. This can include anything from emerging markets to commodities, individual business sectors such as biotechnology or agriculture, and more. Due to the ease of trading and broad coverage, ETFs are extremely popular with investors.

Stocks

Shares of stock let investors participate in a company’s success via increases in the stock’s price and through dividends. Shareholders have a claim on the company’s assets in the event of liquidation (that is, the company going bankrupt) but do not own the assets.

Holders of common stock enjoy voting rights at shareholders’ meetings. Holders of preferred stock don’t have voting rights but do receive preference over common shareholders in terms of the dividend payments.

Some investments, such as hedge funds, are only permitted to wealthy investors.

Alternative Investments

There is a vast universe of alternative investments, including the following sectors:

How to Invest Sensibly, Suitably, and Simply

Many veteran investors diversify their portfolios using the asset classes listed above, with the mix reflecting their tolerance for risk. A good piece of advice to investors is to start with simple investments, then incrementally expand their portfolios. Specifically, mutual funds or ETFs are a good first step, before moving on to individual stocks, real estate, and other alternative investments.

However, most people are too busy to worry about monitoring their portfolios daily. Therefore, sticking with index funds that mirror the market is a viable solution. Steven Goldberg, a principal at the firm Tweddell Goldberg Wealth Management and longtime mutual funds columnist at Kiplinger.com, further argues that most individuals only need three index funds: one covering the U.S. equity market, another focused on international equities, and the third tracking a broad bond index.

What Are the Different Asset Classes?

Historically, the three main asset classes are considered to be equities (stocks), debt (bonds), and money market instruments. Today, many investors may consider real estate, commodities, futures, derivatives, or even cryptocurrencies to be separate asset classes.

Which Asset Classes Are the Least Liquid?

Generally, land and real estate are considered among the least liquid assets, because it can take a long time to buy or sell a property at market price. Money market instruments are the most liquid, because they can easily be sold for their full value.

What Asset Classes Do Well During High Inflation?

Real estate and commodities are considered to be good inflation hedges, because their value tends to rise as prices increase. In addition, some government bonds are also indexed to inflation, making them an attractive way to store excess cash.

The Bottom Line

Investment education is essential—as is avoiding investments that you don’t fully understand. Rely on sound recommendations from experienced investors, while dismissing “hot tips” from untrustworthy sources. When consulting professionals, look to independent financial advisors who get paid only for their time, instead of those who collect commissions. And above all, diversify your holdings across a wide swath of assets.

Best Free Real-Time Stock Charts

The best charts for beginners and experts

The Balance / Julie Bang

A number of websites and platforms provide real-time stock charting capabilities for one-minute, five-minute, and other intraday charting time frames. Some of them even let you track stocks in real time for free. That could be a great deal, depending on your goals. Before jumping in with free real-time stock charts, keep a few considerations in mind.

Key Takeaways

Paid vs. Free Real-Time Stock Charts

Free is nice, and the data might be in real time, but it’s not «official.» Free real-time stock chart data usually comes from one data provider, which means you might not see all the price movements occurring in the stock or exchange-traded fund (ETF) you’re day trading. You may have to pay if you want to receive official price data from a market.

Free real-time stock chart data also isn’t guaranteed to be accurate or timely. When you pay for real-time official quotes, you have some recourse if the data feed is unreliable or inaccurate. With a free site, you have to take the data as is.

That said, free real-time day trading charts are an excellent backup data source on the off chance you lose quotes from your broker. They’re also a great training tool for new traders who are looking to study day trading and craft strategies around price movements in real time.

Here are a few of the best free real-time stock charting platforms to check out.

TradingView

TradingView provides free real-time stock charts that are visually appealing and can be customized with hundreds of technical indicators.

TradingView is also a social media site. Traders can easily share their charts and ideas with each other. You can even follow other traders and discuss stocks and other markets.

Beware of who you’re watching because not everyone sharing charts and ideas will be a profitable trader.

Traders can create watch lists and alerts, see which stocks are hot, and even trade directly from TradingView charts by connecting with a broker. You can use the Strategy Tester to test a built-in strategy for a particular stock and time period. The Pine Editor feature also lets you create your own strategy to test.

TradingView also lets you chart indexes, stocks, bonds, futures, forex, cryptocurrencies, contracts for differences (CFDs), economic data, and global data, although futures data are delayed. You can pay for upgraded options that provide additional features and official real-time data for stocks and futures markets around the globe.

TradingView offers a very extensive list of markets, indexes, and economic data. You won’t have to switch charting platforms to view charts from other markets. It’s also the most socially integrated real-time stock chart of the free providers on our list.

StockCharts

StockCharts is one of those charting platforms that offer both paid and free options. StockCharts’ free capabilities are pretty robust. You can do bar, line, or candlestick charting with more than 40 line studies and modifiable technical indicators.

The free version only lets you plot three indicators at one time.

Data is displayed on either a weekly or daily basis, but you can only go back three years for data unless you have a paid subscription. Other downsides to the free StockCharts option are that you can’t save your screens and the graphics are rather bland.

Yahoo! Finance

Yahoo! Finance offers free real-time quotes for stocks listed on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) and Nasdaq indexes that are provided by Nasdaq Last Sale. It also offers real-time news. Its free interactive charts are quite good, with a selection of more than 100 technical indicators to choose from.

Yahoo! Finance lets traders create an unlimited list of stocks to follow and offers daily trading ideas. It also enables you to link to your brokerage account to implement trades based on your charted strategies.

Google Finance

It’s easy to quickly search for a stock on Google, but you can also see real-time charts for different markets via Google’s Finance section. While it’s not as advanced as the others on our list, Google Finance offers simple—and free—stock charts.

It may not be the best for advanced investors, but it could be just what beginners are looking for.

You can track specific stocks, local markets, and even world markets, adding whatever you want to your watch list. While the technical indicators are lacking, you can at least see performance over time by changing the date range.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

How do you read stock charts?

There are a few different types of stock charts, and each reads a bit uniquely. Bar and candlestick charts show you the opening, high, low, and closing prices for stocks, so you can see what’s happened throughout the day. Line charts only show you each day’s closing price, which is more of a summary view.

What is RSI in stock charts?

«RSI» stands for «relative strength index,» which is a number that tells you whether a stock is overbought or oversold. Essentially, it measures the speed and direction of price movements, providing more information than just the high and low prices throughout the day. A reading below 30 is typically considered oversold, while a reading above 70 is considered overbought.

Best Stock Trading Apps of 2022

The Best Apps for Trading Stocks and More

Michael Rosenston is a fact-checker and researcher with expertise in business, finance, and insurance. Prior to this role, he interned at two Fortune 500 insurance companies and worked in data science in the advertising industry.

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In the past, many people did their investing by working with human stockbrokers who helped them execute buy and sell orders. Today, anyone can start trading stocks, bonds, and other securities online with little effort.

In just a short period of time, smartphones have become a ubiquitous part of life, and people are doing more and more things with them while on the go. Most brokers now offer apps you can use to trade stocks on your phone, making it easy to execute trades anytime, anywhere.

Many investing apps are offered by major brokers and let you do the same things you’d do from your online account portal on a desktop or laptop computer. They’re simply a mobile way to access your account.

If you like to take an active role in managing your portfolio or like to make frequent moves with your money, you might be interested in using a stock trading app. We investigated to find the best apps out there, looking at factors such as their ease of use, minimum deposits, and the fees they charge.

Best International Brokers for Stock Trading 2022

This guide summarizes the best online brokers for international trading in 2022. To qualify, online brokers must be based in the United States, must be U.S.-regulated, and offer international investors the ability to buy and sell stocks.

Currently, there are very few U.S. brokers that support non-U.S. citizens as clients. This is mostly due to the complexities surrounding international regulations, customer service, and language translation.

If you are U.S. citizen and want to buy stocks overseas, the three best international brokers are Interactive Brokers, Fidelity Investments, and Charles Schwab.

Best International Brokers for Stock Trading

International Trading Guides

If you are resident of the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, or Australia, read our full international trading guide below. Similarly, if you are looking for an international forex broker, we have a separate tool for forex through our sister site, ForexBrokers.com.

Interactive Brokers: 184 Countries

Overall | Visit Site

Exclusive Offer: New clients that open an account today receive a special margin rate.

Interactive Brokers countries: Andorra, United Arab Emirates, Antigua and Barbuda, Anguilla, Albania, Armenia, Antarctica, Argentina, American Samoa, Australia, Aruba, Azerbaijan, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Barbados, Bangladesh, Burkina Faso, Bahrain, Burundi, Benin, Bermuda, Brunei, Bolivia, Brazil, Bahamas, Bhutan, Botswana, Belize, Canada, Central African Republic, Switzerland, Cook Islands, Chile, Cameroon, China, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cape Verde, Djibouti, Dominica, Dominican Republic, Algeria, Ecuador, Egypt, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Fiji, Falkland Islands, Federated States of Micronesia, Faroe Islands, Gabon, United Kingdom, Grenada, Georgia, French Guiana, Ghana, Gibraltar, Greece, Greenland, Gambia, Guinea, Guadeloupe, Equatorial Guinea, Guatemala, Guam, Guinea-Bissau, Guyana, Hong Kong, Honduras, Haiti, Indonesia, Israel, India, British Indian Ocean Territory, Iceland, Jamaica, Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, Japan, Kenya, Kyrgyzstan, Cambodia, Kiribati, Comoros, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Republic of Korea, Kuwait, Cayman Islands, Kazakhstan, Laos, Lebanon, Saint Lucia, Liechtenstein, Sri Lanka, Liberia, Lesotho, Morocco, Monaco, Montenegro, Madagascar, Marshall Islands, Macedonia, Mali, Mongolia, Macao, Northern Mariana Islands, Martinique, Mauritania, Montserrat, Mauritius, Maldives, Malawi, Mexico, Malaysia, Mozambique, Namibia, New Caledonia, Niger, Norfolk Island, Nicaragua, Norway, Nepal, Niue, New Zealand, Oman, Panama, Peru, French Polynesia, Papua New Guinea, Philippines, Pakistan, Saint Pierre and Miquelon, Pitcairn Islands, Puerto Rico, Palestine, Palau, Paraguay, Qatar, Réunion, Serbia, Russia, Rwanda, Saudi Arabia, Solomon Islands, Seychelles, Singapore, Saint Helena, Svalbard and Jan Mayen, San Marino, Senegal, Suriname, São Tomé and Príncipe, El Salvador, Swaziland, Turks and Caicos Islands, Chad, French Southern Territories, Togo, Thailand, Tajikistan, Tokelau, East Timor, Turkmenistan, Tunisia, Tonga, Turkey, Trinidad and Tobago, Tuvalu, Taiwan, Ukraine, Uganda, U.S. Minor Outlying Islands, United States, Uruguay, Uzbekistan, Vatican City, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Venezuela, British Virgin Islands, U.S. Virgin Islands, Vietnam, Vanuatu, Wallis and Futuna, Samoa, Mayotte, South Africa, Zambia. If you are a resident of any of these countries, you can open an account with Interactive Brokers and invest in U.S. stocks.

TradeStation: 156 Countries

TradeStation countries: Andorra, United Arab Emirates, Antigua and Barbuda, Anguilla, Antarctica, Argentina, American Samoa, Austria, Australia, Aruba, Åland, Barbados, Belgium, Bulgaria, Bahrain, Saint-Barthélemy, Bermuda, Brunei, Bolivia; Bonaire, Sint Eustatius and Saba; Brazil, Bhutan, Belize, Canada, Cocos [Keeling] Islands, Republic of the Congo, Switzerland, Cook Islands, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cape Verde, Curaçao, Christmas Island, Cyprus, Czechia, Germany, Denmark, Dominica, Dominican Republic, Estonia, Spain, Finland, Fiji, Falkland Islands, Federated States of Micronesia, Faroe Islands, France, United Kingdom, Grenada, French Guiana, Guernsey, Gibraltar, Greenland, Guadeloupe, Greece, South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands, Guatemala, Guam, Hong Kong, Honduras, Croatia, Hungary, Indonesia, Ireland, Israel, Isle of Man, India, British Indian Ocean Territory, Iceland, Italy, Jersey, Jamaica, Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, Japan, Kiribati, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Republic of Korea, Kuwait, Cayman Islands, Laos, Saint Lucia, Liechtenstein, Lesotho, Republic of Lithuania, Luxembourg, Latvia, Monaco, Republic of Moldova, Saint Martin, Marshall Islands, Northern Mariana Islands, Martinique, Montserrat, Malta, Mauritius, Malawi, Mexico, Malaysia, New Caledonia, Norfolk Island, Netherlands, Norway, Nauru, Niue, New Zealand, Oman, Panama, Peru, French Polynesia, Papua New Guinea, Philippines, Poland, Saint Pierre and Miquelon, Pitcairn Islands, Puerto Rico, Portugal, Palau, Paraguay, Qatar, Réunion, Romania, Saudi Arabia, Solomon Islands, Sweden, Singapore, Saint Helena, Slovenia, Svalbard and Jan Mayen, Slovak Republic, San Marino, Senegal, Suriname, São Tomé and Príncipe, El Salvador, Sint Maarten, Turks and Caicos Islands, French Southern Territories, Togo, Thailand, Tokelau, Tonga, Tuvalu, Taiwan, Tanzania, U.S. Minor Outlying Islands, United States, Uruguay, Vatican City, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, British Virgin Islands, U.S. Virgin Islands, Wallis and Futuna, Samoa, Kosovo, South Africa. If you are a resident of any of these countries, you can open an account with TradeStation and invest in U.S. stocks.

Firstrade: 21 Countries

Firstrade countries: Austria, Belgium, China, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Hong Kong, India, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Macau, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Singapore, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Taiwan, Thailand, United Kingdom and the United States. If you are a resident of any of these countries, you can open an account with Firstrade and invest in U.S. stocks.

Other international brokers

Site visitors frequently ask about other popular online brokers and the countries of residence they support. Most brokers only offer trading to residents of the United States.

Charles Schwab countries: United States, Argentina, Australia, Bahamas, Belgium, Bermuda, Brazil, Cayman Islands, Chile, China, Columbia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Germany, Guam, Guatemala, Hong Kong, India, Israel, Malaysia, Mexico, Panama, Peru, Philippines, Puerto Rico, Qatar, Spain, Switzerland, Taiwan (Province of China), Thailand, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, Uruguay, Venezuela, British Virgin Islands, U.S. Virgin Islands. If you are a resident of any of these countries, you can open an account with Charles Schwab and invest in U.S. stocks.

Fidelity countries: United States, Guam, Puerto Rico, and U.S. Virgin Islands.

E*TRADE countries: United States residents only.

TD Ameritrade countries: United States and Canada residents only.

What is an international broker?

Any stockbroker that accepts clients from more than one country and offers trading access to global stock exchanges is considered an international broker. Some online stock brokers in the U.S. only accept U.S. citizens. Meanwhile, other U.S. brokers support residents of Canada, Australia, the U.K., broader Europe, or other countries across the globe.

Ultimately, what matters is that the broker is regulated and licensed to do business in your country of residence.

Can a non-U.S. citizen open a brokerage account?

It depends. In many cases, if you are a legal resident in the U.S. but not a U.S. citizen, then proper identification may be enough to open a U.S. brokerage account.

If you reside outside of the United States and are not a U.S. citizen, you may still be able to open a brokerage account. As long as the online broker accepts applications from your country of residence, then you should be able to proceed.

How do I buy stocks internationally?

To buy foreign stocks, you must first open an international brokerage account. Then, after funding your account, you may need to request access (including price data) for the exchange you want to trade. Alternatively, simply search for the specific symbol to see if it is available to trade from within your account.

Example: A trader who wants to buy British Petroleum PLC (LSE: BP) would enter the symbol BP on the trading platform. If you enter this on the Interactive Brokers platform, BP will yield a few results, but the correct one if you want to buy it on the London Stock Exchange (LSE) is “BP PLC – LSE.”

Companies can have multiple results because they may be dually-listed, trade as an American Deposit Receipt (ADR), or trade as a Contract for Difference (CFD). Bottom line: you will need to know the exchange and symbol to buy an international stock.

Which broker is best for international trading?

Interactive Brokers is the best U.S.-based international stock broker because it provides you access to the most exchanges and supports clients from the widest variety of countries.

That said, the best international broker will vary depending on where you live. Use our international trading search tool above to compare trading platforms available across the globe.

About the Author

What is Forex trading?

Learn how to become a forex trader with our comprehensive guide.

Your starting point as a beginner to forex trading

The foreign exchange market, also known as the forex market, is the world’s most traded financial market. We’re committed to ensuring our clients have the best education, tools, platforms, and accounts to navigate this market and trade forex.

If you’re not sure where to start when it comes to forex, you’re in the right place.

You’ll find everything you need to know about forex trading, what it is, how it works and how to start trading.

Jump to your chapter of interest

What is forex?

Forex is short for foreign exchange – the transaction of changing one currency into another currency. This process can be performed for a variety of reasons including commercial, tourism and to enable international trade.

Forex is traded on the forex market, which is open to buy and sell currencies 24 hours a day, five days a week and is used by banks, businesses, investment firms, hedge funds and retail traders.

What is the forex market?

One critical feature of the forex market is that there is no central marketplace or exchange in a central location, as all trading is done electronically via computer networks. This is known as an over the counter (OTC) market.

What is FX?

The foreign exchange (also known as forex or FX) market refers to the global marketplace where banks, institutions and investors trade and speculate on national currencies.

Summarizing the basics of forex trading

What is forex trading?

Forex trading is the process of speculating on currency prices to potentially make a profit. Currencies are traded in pairs, so by exchanging one currency for another, a trader is speculating on whether one currency will rise or fall in value against the other.

The value of a currency pair is influenced by trade flows, economic, political and geopolitical events which affect the supply and demand of forex. This creates daily volatility that may offer a forex trader new opportunities. Online trading platforms provided by global brokers like FXTM mean you can buy and sell currencies from your phone, laptop, tablet or PC.

What is an online forex broker?

An online forex broker acts as an intermediary, enabling retail traders to access online trading platforms to speculate on currencies and their price movements.

Most online brokers will offer leverage to individual traders, which allows them to control a large forex position with a small deposit. It is important to remember that profits and losses are magnified when trading with leverage.

FXTM offers a number of different trading accounts, each providing services and features tailored to a clients’ individual trading objectives.

Discover the account that’s right for you by visiting our account page. If you’re new to forex, you can begin exploring the markets by trading on our demo account, risk-free.

Why trade forex?

Forex offers many benefits to retail traders.

You can trade around the clock in different sessions across the globe, as the forex market is not traded through a central exchange like a stock market. This means you can jump on volatility, wherever it happens. High liquidity also enables you to execute your orders quickly and effortlessly.

Trading forex using leverage allows you to open a position by putting up only a portion of the full trade value. You can also go long (buy) or short (sell) depending on whether you think a forex pair’s value will rise or fall.

Forex trading offers constant opportunities across a wide range of FX pairs. FXTM’s comprehensive range of educational resources are a perfect way to get started and improve your trading knowledge.

Understanding Currency Pairs

All transactions made on the forex market involve the simultaneous buying and selling of two currencies.

This ‘currency pair’ is made up of a base currency and a quote currency, whereby you sell one to purchase another. The price for a pair is how much of the quote currency it costs to buy one unit of the base currency. You can make a profit by correctly forecasting the price move of a currency pair.

FXTM offers hundreds of combinations of currency pairs to trade including the majors which are the most popular traded pairs in the forex market. These include the Euro against the US Dollar, the US Dollar against the Japanese Yen and the British Pound against the US Dollar.

The diagram on the left looks at the most traded currency pair (EUR/USD) in the forex market and breaks down its essential components

For most currency pairs, a pip is the fourth decimal place, the main exception being the Japanese Yen where a pip is the second decimal place.

On the forex market, trades in currencies are often worth millions, so small bid-ask price differences (i.e. several pips) can soon add up to a significant profit. Of course, such large trading volumes mean a small spread can also equate to significant losses.

Trading forex is risky, so always trade carefully and implement risk management tools and techniques.

Essential components of currency pair trading

Base currency

The base currency is the first currency that appears in a forex pair and is always quoted on the left. This currency is bought or sold in exchange for the quote currency and is always worth 1.

Based on the example above, it will cost a trader 1.1918 USD to buy 1 EUR.

Alternatively, a trader could sell 1 EUR for 1.1916 USD.

Bid price

The bid price is the value at which a trader is prepared to sell a currency. This price is usually to the left of the quote and often in red.

The bid price is given in real time and is constantly updating as it is a live market.

Quote currency

The second currency of a currency pair is called the quote currency and is always on the right.

In EUR/USD for example, USD is the quote currency and shows how much of the quote currency you’ll exchange for 1 unit of the base currency.

Ask price

The ask price is the value at which a trader accepts to buy a currency or is the lowest price a seller is willing to accept. This is usually to the right and in blue.

The ask price is given in real time and is constantly changing as it is a live market.

Understanding spreads and pip in forex

Spread

As a forex trader, you’ll notice that the bid price is always higher than the ask price. The difference between these two prices is the spread. In other words, it is the cost of trading. The narrower the spread, the cheaper it costs. The wider the spread, the more expensive it is.

For example, if EUR/USD is trading with an ask price of 1.1918 and a bid price of 1.1916, then the spread will be the ask price minus the bid price. In this case, 0.0002.

In order to make a profit in foreign exchange trading, you’ll want the market price to rise above the bid price if you are long, or fall below the ask price if you are short.

Pip

A point in percentage – or pip for short – is a measure of the change in value of a currency pair in the forex market.

It is the smallest possible move that a currency price can change which is the equivalent of a ‘point’ of movement.

What is a forex trader?

A forex trader will hold a ‘position’ in a currency pair. This is the term used to describe a trade in progress and one that will have a profit or a loss, as the open position indicates the trader has some market exposure

Difference between long and short positions

A long position means a trader has bought a currency expecting its value to rise. Once the trader sells that currency back to the market (ideally for a higher price than he or she paid for it), their long position is said to be ‘closed’ and the trade is complete.

If you wanted to open a long position on the Euro, you would purchase 1 Euro for USD 1.1918. You will then hold your position in the hope that it will appreciate, selling it back to the market at a profit once the price has increased.

A short position refers to a trader who sells a currency expecting its value to fall and plans to buy it back at a lower price. A short position is ‘closed’ once the trader buys back the asset (ideally for less than he or she sold it for).

In this case, if you think the Euro will weaken against the Dollar, you will sell 1 Euro for USD 1.1916 and hold a short position. You expect the Euro to depreciate and plan to buy it back at a lower rate.

What are the most traded currency pairs on the forex market?

There are seven major currency pairs traded in the forex market, all of which include the US Dollar in the pair.

You can also trade crosses, which do not involve the USD, and exotic currency pairs which are historically less commonly traded (and relatively illiquid).

This means they often come with wider spreads, meaning they’re more expensive than crosses or majors.

Different Groups of Currency Pairs

Major currency pairs

Major currency pairs are generally thought to drive the forex market. They are the most commonly traded and account for over 80% of daily forex trade volume.

There are four traditional majors – EURUSD, GBPUSD, USDJPY and USDCHF – and three known as the commodity pairs – AUDUSD, USDCAD and NZDUSD.

These currency pairs typically have high liquidity, which means they tend to have lower spreads. They are associated with stable, well managed economies and are less prone to slippage, where the expected price of a trade differs from the price the trade was executed at.

Cross currency pairs

The most commonly traded are derived from minor currency pairs and can be less liquid than major currency pairs. Examples of the most commonly traded crosses include EURGBP, EURCHF, and EURJPY.

Exotic currency pairs

Exotics are currencies from emerging or developing economies, paired with one major currency.

Compared to crosses and majors, exotics are traditionally riskier to trade because they are more volatile and less liquid. This is because these countries’ economies can be more susceptible to intervention and sudden shifts in political and financial developments.

Overview of different currency pairs across forex trading, as well as their nicknames used in the market

Majors

EUR/USD «fiber”
USD/JPY «gopher»
GBP/USD «cable»
USD/CHF «swissie»
AUD/USD «aussie»
USD/CAD «loonie»
NZD/USD «kiwi”

Minors

EUR/GBP «chunnel»
EUR/JPY «yuppy»
GBP/JPY «guppy»
NZD/JPY «kiwi yen»
CAD/CHF «loonie swissy»
AUD/JPY

Exotics

USD/MXN
GBP/NOK
GBP/DKK
CHF/NOK
CHF/NOK
EUR/TRY
USD/TRY

How to trade forex for beginners

There are two main types of analysis that traders use to predict market movements and enter live positions in forex markets – fundamental analysis and technical analysis.

A forex trader will tend to use one or a combination of these to determine their trading style which fits their personality.

Fundamental Analysis

This analysis is interested in the ‘why’ – why is a forex market reacting the way it does? Forex and currencies are affected by many reasons, including a country’s economic strength, political and social factors, and market sentiment.

The biggest fundamental analysis indicators

News and Economic Data
Investors and banks look for strong economies to place their funds, in the expectation that their capital will appreciate.This is because the currency of that country will be in demand as the outlook for the economy encourages more investment. Any news and economic reports which back this up will in turn see traders want to buy that country’s currency.

Central Bank and Government Policy
Central banks determine monetary policy, which means they control things like money supply and interest rates. The tools and policy types used will ultimately affect the supply and demand of their currencies. A government’s use of fiscal policy through spending or taxes to grow or slow the economy may also affect exchange rates.

Technical Analysis

Forex traders who use technical analysis study price action and trends on the price charts. These movements can help the trader to identify clues about levels of supply and demand.

The aim of technical analysis is to interpret patterns seen in charts that will help you find the right time and price level to both enter and exit the market.

The three most popular charts in trading

Candlestick Chart

The chart displays the high-to-low range with a vertical line and opening and closing prices. The difference to the bar charts is in the ‘body’ which covers the opening and closing prices, while the candle ‘wicks’ show the high and low.

If the candlestick is filled, then the currency pair closed lower than it opened. If the candlestick is hollow, then the closing price is higher than the opening price.

Bar chart

A bar chart shows the opening and closing prices, as well as the high and low for that period. he top of the bar shows the highest price paid, and the bottom indicates the lowest traded price.

The whole bar represents the currency pair’s whole trading range and the horizontal marks on the sides indicate the opening (left) and the closing prices (right).

Line chart

While a bar chart is commonly used to identify the contraction and expansion of price ranges, a line chart is the simplest of all charts and mostly used by beginners. It simply shows a line drawn from one closing price to the next.

When connected, it is simple to identify a price movement of a currency pair through a specific time period and determine currency patterns.

How to start trading with a forex broker

FXTM gives you access to trading forex as you can execute your buy and sell orders on their trading platforms.

You should always choose a licensed, regulated broker that has at least five years of proven experience. These brokers will offer you peace of mind as they will always prioritise the protection of your funds. Once you open an active account, you can start trading forex — and you will be required to make a deposit to cover the costs of your trades. This is called a margin account which uses financial derivatives like CFDs to buy and sell currencies.

It is important to remember that trading for beginners isn’t an overnight process. It takes time to become familiar with the markets and there’s a whole new vocabulary to learn. For this reason, FXTM offer a wealth of resources to learn to trade forex. For example, our Demo account is a great way to experiment with different trading strategies – but with virtual money which means with no risk attached!

Once you’re ready to move on to live trading, we’ve also got a great range of trading accounts and online trading platforms to suit you.

Online trading platforms

Forex trading platforms have transformed how people interact with financial markets. They enable investors to easily access hundreds of different markets across the globe.

MetaTrader and FXTM

As a leading global broker, we’re committed to providing flexible services tailored to the needs of our clients. As such, we are proud to offer the most popular trading platforms in the world – MetaTrader 4 (MT4) and MetaTrader 5 (MT5). They are both available on a PC, Mac, mobile or tablet. Our traders can also use the WebTrader version, which means no download is required, while the MT apps for iOS and Android allow you to trade the markets on the go, anytime and anywhere.

All these platforms can be used to open, close and manage trades from the device of your choice.

Combine tools with MetaTrader
The platforms contain a huge variety of tools, indicators and charts designed to allow you to monitor and analyse the markets in real-time. You can even build strategies to execute your trades using algorithms. Together with innovative services such as FXTM’s Pivot Point tool, Dow Jones insights, and our award-winning Customer Support team, our clients have the resources they need to trade with confidence on the platform of their choice. You can read more and download the trading platforms from our trading platforms page.

Explore trading platforms in more depth

Get all the details you need on MT4 and MT5 by visiting their respective pages.

Learn forex trading

FXTM firmly believes that developing a sound understanding of the markets is your best chance at success as a forex trader. That’s why we offer a vast range of industry-leading educational resources in a variety of languages which are tailored to the needs of both new and more experienced traders.

These include Ebooks, daily market analysis, a variety of videos, and more long read guides just like this one!

There are also many forex tools available to traders such as margin calculators, pip calculators, profit calculators, foreign exchange currency converters, economic data calendars and trading signals.

Forex widgets can help to enhance your trading experience. Some of the most popular widgets include Live Rates Feed, Live Commodities Quotes, Live Indices Quotes, and Market Update widgets.

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Rue du Savoir, Cybercity, Ebene 72201, Mauritius

West End Towers, Waiyaki Way, 6th Floor,

P.O. Box 1896-00606, Nairobi, Republic of Kenya

FXTM in Nigeria

Sponsorships and ESG

FXTM brand is authorized and regulated in various jurisdictions.

ForexTime Ltd (www.forextime.com/eu) with registration number HE 310361 and registration address at 35, Lamprou Konstantara, FXTM Tower, 4156, Kato Polemidia, Limassol, Cyprus is regulated by the Cyprus Securities and Exchange Commission with CIF license number 185/12, licensed by the Financial Sector Conduct Authority (FSCA) of South Africa, with FSP No. 46614.

Exinity UK Limited (www.forextime.com/uk) with registration number 10599136 and registration address at 1 st. Katharine’s Way London, England, E1W 1UN, UK is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority with license number 777911.

Exinity Limited (www.forextime.com) with registration number C119470 C1/GBL and registration address at 5th Floor, NEX Tower, Rue du Savoir, Cybercity, 72201 Ebene, Republic of Mauritius is regulated by the Financial Services Commission of the Republic of Mauritius with an Investment Dealer License with license number C113012295.

Exinity Limited is a member of Financial Commission, an international organization engaged in a resolution of disputes within the financial services industry in the Forex market.

Risk Warning: Trading Forex and Leveraged Financial Instruments involves significant risk and can result in the loss of your invested capital. You should not invest more than you can afford to lose and should ensure that you fully understand the risks involved. Trading leveraged products may not be suitable for all investors. Trading non-leveraged products such as stocks also involves risk as the value of a stock can fall as well as rise, which could mean getting back less than you originally put in. Past performance is no guarantee of future results. Before trading, please take into consideration your level of experience, investment objectives and seek independent financial advice if necessary. It is the responsibility of the Client to ascertain whether he/she is permitted to use the services of the FXTM brand based on the legal requirements in his/her country of residence. Please read FXTM’s full Risk Disclosure.

Regional restrictions FXTM brand does not provide services to residents of the USA, Mauritius, Japan, Canada, Haiti, Iran, Suriname, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, Puerto Rico, Brazil, the Occupied Area of Cyprus, Quebec, Iraq, Hong Kong, Syria and Cuba. Find out more in the Regulations section of our FAQs.

Best Free Trading Platform with No Fees – Cheapest Brokers Revealed

If you’re looking for the best free trading platform for 2022 – there are now dozens of online brokers that allow you to buy and sell assets without paying any commissions. This means that you trade your chosen financial instrument without getting hammered by unnecessary brokerage fees. And of course, the best free trading platforms do not charge any fees to open an account, deposit funds, or keep your investments open.

In this guide, we discuss the best free trading platforms to consider right now.

Your capital is at risk.

Best Free Trading Platform with No Fees List

In searching high and low for the best free trading platform for with no fees for 2022, we found that the providers listed below are the cheapest out there.

Best Free Trading Platforms Reviewed

The term ‘free trading platform’ is typically used to describe an online broker that allows you to trade without paying any commission or dealing fees.

You might also find that your chosen free brokerage platform doesn’t charge anything to open an account, deposit or withdraw funds, or use its demo trading facility. In turn, the free online trading platform will make its money elsewhere – perhaps through the spread or by lending your shares out to short-sellers.

Nevertheless, below you will find a selection of the best free trading platforms available to retail clients in 2022.

1. eToro – Overall Best Free Trading Platform 2022

After searching long and hard for the best low-cost providers in the online brokerage space – we found that eToro is the best free trading platform for 2022. First and foremost, it costs nothing to open an account with this broker.

There are no commissions or fees to keep your investments open either – so eToro is highly suitable for long-term portfolios. In terms of what assets this top-rated free trading platform offers – this covers everything from stocks and ETFs to cryptocurrencies and CFDs. This covers over 2,400 shares from 17 markets – so eToro is ideal for those of you looking to trade or invest in equities.

Or, you might consider eToro CopyPortoflios. Although these are professionally managed by the eToro team, the broker does not charge any commission. In terms of payments, you can deposit funds with a debit card, credit card, bank wire, local bank transfer, or an e-wallet.

When it comes to regulation, eToro is licensed by the FCA (UK), ASIC (Australia), and CySEC (Cyprus). For those of you based in the US – eToro is registered with FINRA. All in all, more than 20 million clients are now using eToro – so it’s no wonder it makes the number one spot in our list of the best free trading platforms for 2022.

eToro fees

Pros:

Cons:

Not suitable for active traders that like to perform technical analysis

67% of retail investor accounts lose money when trading CFDs with this provider. You should consider whether you can afford to take the high risk of losing your money.

2. Libertex – Best Free Trading Platform for Tight Spreads

Libertex fees

Pros:

Tight spread CFD trading Very competitive commissions Good educational resources Long established broker Trade stocks and indices like the Dow Jones Compatible with MT4 Great choice of markets

Cons:

CFDs are complex instruments and come with a high risk of losing money rapidly due to leverage. 74% of retail investor accounts lose money when trading CFDs with this provider. You should consider whether you understand how CFDs work and whether you can afford to take the high risk of losing your money.

3. Skilling – Best Free Trading Platform with No Fees for Leveraged CFDs

Much like Libertex, Skilling is a day trading platform that specializes in CFD instruments. Once again, this means that US citizens won’t be able to use the platform. Nevertheless, SKilling is a great option if you wish to trade with leverage.

Skilling fees

«> Fee	«> Amount
«> CFD trading fee	«> Variable spread
«> Forex trading fee	«> Variable spread
«> Crypto trading fee	«> Commission, 0.2% in Bitcoin
«> Inactivity fee	«> Free
«> Withdrawal fee	«> Free

Pros:

Cons:

75% of retail investor accounts lose money when trading CFDs with this provider.

4. Robinhood – Best Free Trading Platform with No Fees for US Stocks and Options

Robinhood is primarily a stock trading platform and offers more than 5,000 stocks and ETFs. Other than a few hundred overseas instruments, stocks on Robinhood are listed on the NYSE and NASDAQ. As such, the platform is ideal if you want exposure to the US markets.

Robinhood fees

«> Fee	«> Amount
«> Stock trading fee	«> Free
«> Forex trading fee	«> N/A
«> Crypto trading fee	«> Free
«> Inactivity fee	«> No inactivity fee
«> Withdrawal fee	«> No withdrawal fee

Pros:

Cons:

Only 250-ish international stocks offered No debit/credit card or e-wallet deposits Confusing margin rates

Your capital is at risk.

5. TD Ameritrade – Best Free Trading Platform for Seasoned Investors

However, while Robinhood is ideal for newbies, the platform isn’t quite suitable for those of you that wish to access more advanced trading tools. TD Ameritrade, on the other hand, is arguably the best free trading platform for seasoned pros. Also if you are looking to invest or trade in forex then this is a good option, unlike some other platforms which you can see from our TD Ameritrade vs Charles Schwab comparison.

We should also note that TD Ameritrade allows you to set up thinkorswim in demo mode. This free paper trading facility, therefore, allows you to get to grips with how thinkorswim works before risking any capital. When it comes to payments, TD Ameritrade does not charge any deposit or withdrawal fees, and there is no account minimum.

TD Ameritrade fees

Pros:

Cons:

Not as user-friendly as other investing apps in the market The sheer size of tradable markets on offer can appear overwhelming

Your capital is at risk.

6. Charles Schwab – Best Free Trading Platform for Fractional Shares

Charles Schwab fees

«> Fee	«> Amount
«> ETF trading fee	«> Free
«> Forex trading fee	«> N/A
«> Crypto trading fee	«> N/A
«> Inactivity fee	«> Free
«> Withdrawal fee	«> Free

Pros:

Cons:

Your capital is at risk.

7. Webull – Best Free Trading Platform App for Mobile Investments

In fact, the Webull trading app is so simple to use that you don’t need to have any prior investment knowledge. Instead, it’s just a case of searching for your chosen stock and entering the amount you wish to invest.

In terms of stand-out features, Webull allows you to trade commission-free. This is the case across its library of US-listed stocks, options, and ETFs. You can also buy foreign stocks in the shape of ADRs (American Depositary Receipt). If you are depositing and withdrawing funds via ACH, then you won’t be charged any fees.

Check out our Webull review to learn more about this broker.

Webull fees

Pros:

Cons:

Only available to US traders No forex or commodity CFD trading Payments are only by bank or wire transfer Limited educational resources Less than optimal customer support

75% of retail investors lose money trading CFDs at this site.

8. Fidelity – Best Free Trading Platform with No Fees for ETFs

An additional reason why we like this free trading platform is that it offers top-rated research and educational materials. This is ideal if you are a newbie and want to learn the ropes of investing step-by-step. Fidelity also gets the thumbs up because it gives you access to US-based tax forms that you’ll need to submit at the end of each year. To get an idea of how Fidelity compares to other brokers, then why not look at our Fidelity vs TD Ameritrade review.

Fidelity fees

«> Fee	«> Amount
«> Stock trading fee	«> Free
«> Forex trading fee	«> N/A
«> Crypto trading fee	«> N/A
«> Inactivity fee	«> Free
«> Withdrawal fee	«> Free

Pros:

Cons:

Account opening process can be slow No debit card deposits/withdrawals

Your capital is at risk.

How to Choose the Best Free Trading Platform for You

This is because you often need to look beyond the free trading service offered by the broker. For example, what assets can you buy and sell for free, what is the minimum deposit requirement, and what payment methods are supported?

Below you will find a list of key metrics to consider in your search for the best trading platform for 2022.

Regulation

Assets

For example, a lot of US-based brokers only offer fee-free investments on assets listed on the NASDAQ or NYSE. Fortunately, platforms like eToro allow you to invest in over 17 international markets without charging any commission. As such, this broker is ideal if you wish to build a highly diversified portfolio of shares, ETFs, and even cryptocurrencies.

In addition to this, you also need to explore whether you are buying the asset outright or trading CFDs. Of course, if you’re an American you don’t need to worry about this as CFDs are prohibited.

Fees

Here are the main fees that you need to explore in your search for the best free trading platform.

Commissions and Dealing Fees

First and foremost, all of the best free trading platforms discussed today allow you to invest commission-free. But, this isn’t the case with all supported financial instruments.

Spreads

Deposits and Withdrawals

Platform Fees

Trading Tools & Features

A lot of free trading platforms offer a simple, skin and bones service. This means that you can buy and sell assets fee-free, but you won’t have access to any notable tools. With that said, most of the free trading platforms that we reviewed on this page offer several features that you might be interested in.

Copy Trading

Past performance is not an indication of future results

67% of retail investor accounts lose money when trading CFDs with this provider. You should consider whether you can afford to take the high risk of losing your money.

Fractional Ownership

Margin Trading and Short-Selling

Many of the free trading platforms discussed today allow you to trade on margin. This means that you can trade assets with more money than you have in your account.

Education, Research & Analysis

User Experience

67% of retail investor accounts lose money when trading CFDs with this provider. You should consider whether you can afford to take the high risk of losing your money.

Payment Methods

With that said, the likes of eToro, Libertex, and Skilling allow you to instantly fund your trading account with a debit/credit card. The aforementioned free trading platforms even support e-wallets like Paypal and Neteller.

Customer Service

How to Get Started with the Best Free Trading Platform with No Fee

Step 1: Open an Account

67% of retail investor accounts lose money when trading CFDs with this provider. You should consider whether you can afford to take the high risk of losing your money.

Next, you will be asked to upload a copy of your government-issued ID (passport or driver’s license). This ensures that eToro complies with its license issuers and that all clients are kept safe from financial crime.

Step 2: Deposit Funds

You can now deposit some funds into eToro using one of the following payment methods:

Step 3: Search for an Asset

Alternatively, you can go straight to the respective trading page by searching for your chosen market. As you can see from the above, we are searching for Bitcoin on eToro’s Bitcoin trading platform.

Step 4: Complete Your Free Trade

Conclusion

67% of retail investor accounts lose money when trading CFDs with this provider. You should consider whether you can afford to take the high risk of losing your money.

What are the best free paper trading platforms?

What is a free stock trading platform?

The term ‘free stock trading platform’ is used to describe an online that allows you to buy and sell shares without paying any commission.

What is the best CFD trading platform?

After reviewing dozens of providers, we found that eToro is the best CFD trading platform of 2022. Crucially, you can trade thousands of CFDs at this heavily regulated platform without paying any commission. Your chosen free stock trading platform may, however, charge fees in other departments. This might include deposits/withdrawals, spreads, or margin trading.

What is the best free cryptocurrency trading platform?

How do free trading platforms make money?

What is the best free trading app?

What is the best free trading platform for CFDs?

Kane Pepi is a British researcher and writer that specializes in finance, financial crime, and blockchain technology. Now based in Malta, Kane writes for a number of platforms in the online domain. In particular, Kane is skilled at explaining complex financial subjects in a user-friendly manner. Kane has also written for websites such as MoneyCheck, InsideBitcoins, Blockonomi, Learnbonds, Buysharesand the Malta Association of Compliance Officers.

5 Best Brokers for Stock Trading 2022

Investors should know the best online brokers for stock trading. Some online stock brokers are known for their trading platform while others are known for research capabilities or customer service.

Over the years, I’ve placed thousands of trades with well over a dozen different online brokers. While I focus primarily on stock and ETFs trading, I also have experience with options trading, cryptocurrency, and forex.

My goal with this guide is to highlight some of the best brokers available today with tips and advice for choosing an online broker.

Best Brokers for Stock Trading 2022

In addition to the brokers above, I also provide my thoughts on Webull, TradeStation, and Robinhood.

Minimum Deposit	$0
Stock Trades	$0
Options (Per Contract)	$0.65

Best trading tools

Minimum Deposit	$0
Stock Trades	$0
Options (Per Contract)	$0.65

Best for mobile trading

Minimum Deposit	$0
Stock Trades	$0
Options (Per Contract)	$0.65

E*TRADE is best known for its Power E*TRADE trading platform which is available through its website and as a standalone stock app. My favorite way to use Power E*TRADE is for options trading because its tools are great for beginners. Read Full Review

Best for IRA accounts

Minimum Deposit	$0
Stock Trades	$0
Options (Per Contract)	$0.65

Charles Schwab is a full-service brokerage that delivers a comprehensive investment experience. From self-directed trading with excellent stock research to a full lineup of retirement services, Schwab delivers; however, its stock app left me wanting more. Read Full Review

Best for ESG research

Minimum Deposit	$0
Stock Trades	$0
Options (Per Contract)	$0.65

Easy to use but limited tools

Minimum Deposit	$0
Stock Trades	$0
Options (Per Contract)	$0

Webull and Robinhood compete with each other for everyday investors looking for an easy to use stock app that also offers cryptocurrency trading. Unfortunately, Webull, like Robinhood, lacks the trading tools and stock research beginners need to succeed. Read Full Review

Get 12 free stocks when you open & fund.

Great for day trading

Minimum Deposit	$0
Stock Trades	$0
Options (Per Contract)	$0.50

TradeStation offers an advanced stock app and desktop day trading platform loaded with trading tools, making it excellent for buying and selling stocks, ETFs, options, futures, and even cryptocurrency. For everyday trading, I recommend the Web Trading (browser) platform over the desktop version. Read Full Review

Easy to use but no tools

Minimum Deposit	$0
Stock Trades	$0
Options (Per Contract)	$0

What is the best stock app for beginners?

So you are new to investing, and you want to buy a share of Apple (AAPL), Tesla (TSLA), Facebook (FB), or similar. I remember the feeling. As a beginner, it can be pretty intimidating to get started stock trading. Don’t worry though, once you place that first stock trade, it is off to the races. 🙂

Fidelity offers investors a one-two punch of terrific market research that is comprehensive and easy to use, alongside a large selection of educational courses covering the basics of stock trading and beyond. Out of all the brokers, Fidelity is also my favorite for retirement education, thanks to its Fidelity Viewpoints articles.