Discount Broker

by · June 14, 2012

A discount broker is a stockbroker who sells and buys stocks with reduced commission. Discount brokers provide the portal to electronic trading infrastructure at a fraction of the cost of a traditional broker.

Few Discount brokers

  • Charles Schwab Corporation
  • E-Trade
  • PTI Securities & Futures
  • Scottrade
  • SogoTrade
  • IDealing
  • Interactive Brokers
  • TD Ameritrade
  • Hargreaves Lansdown
  • Clubfinance
  • Bestinvest
  • Fidelity Investments
  • Firstrade
  • TradeKing
  • Vanguard Brokerage Services.
  • Zerodha

Advantages

On Cost– They charge a fraction of what traditional brokers used to charge. With the rising prevalence of discount brokers, nearly everyone can trade.

Minimum Requirements – Discount brokers also score above others when it comes to the amont of documentation required to open an account. Many discount brokers claim that you can open an account and start trading in a couple of minutes.

Customer Service – When using a discount broker you will be doing all your own trading online through their platform, but from time to time you will need to get in touch with customer service:

  • LiveChat
  • Phone
  • Email
  • Face-to-face support in their branches

Variety Investments Offered:

  • Stocks
  • Options
  • ETFs
  • Mutual funds
  • Retirement funds

Trading and investing tools offered: 

  • Mobile trading
  • Fast execution
  • Level I & II quotes
  • Automated trading, watch lists
  • Great charting and graphing tools
  • Real time updates and streaming quotes
  • Solid research & screening tools.
  • Dow Jones news & research analysis is free
  • Interactive learning resources
  • Watch lists (sync with mobile trading apps)
  • Powerful screeners
  • Customizable TradeArchitect web-based platform.
  • Advanced thinkorswim platform for professional traders
  • Free independent research from Morningstar Associates and S&P
  • One-click trading
  • Customizable in-screen access to fundamental and technical analysis tools
  • Visual tools, heat maps, P&L graphs
  • Probability and volatility technical analysis tools
  • Ability to enter trades through various popular 3rd party applications

Educative material

  • Information or knowledge on shares would be provided on the website
  • It would come with a disclaimer though that they are not advising any buy or sell

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