Top things to look for in an online broker

Online trading is probably one of the best thing Internet ever offered to stock market investors besides the vast amount of free information available. Here are some of the top things to look for in a good online broker: 

Fees: online broker has reached a long way now to an extent where some brokerage firms offer free trades. Zecco offers no fee trades when you keep your account balance there above certain amount of money.

Research and Information: online brokers aren’t just as a platform to trade stocks on the interny anymore; they also play an essential role in providing research tools and other information about the stocks you are interested in trading.

User friendly: now just because someone trade stocks online doesn’t mean he or she is a computer geek. Therefore, online trading platform has to be powerful and simple at the same time. Investors can’t waste too much time trying to figure out how, what and where things. Scottrade ranks pretty high on user friendliness.

Customer service: there are always a time when you cant figure out a thing or two yourself, thats when you call up customer service department. TradeKing and OptionsXpress have created it’s own user community to share and help each other.
Bells and Whistles: Fidelity offers great extras that can help with investing.