Cheap Stock Trades... 

Cheap Stock Trades Are Just A Click Away

In the quest to lower trading costs good traders are always looking for the best broker offering cheap stock trades.

Those fortunate to have large trading accounts are able many times to trade free and it doesn’t get much cheaper than that does it?

Unfortunately, for the rest of us we must be constantly on the lookout for new firms offering cheap stock trades always weighing their fee schedules against what we are currently paying.

While looking at ways to achieve cheap stock trading does not seem exciting or glamorous it is no different than a traditional business that is always looking at ways of saving money on such business necessities like insurance or merchandise costs.

This is because we must realize that while we learn cheap stock trading strategies we must acknowledge that the largest component of our trading costs will be our commissions. They are the variable costs while items like data fees are our fixed costs. It really is no different than any other business and if you don’t think trading is a business well, that is a topic for another article.

As a trader or even a casual investor your overall returns must always take your transaction costs into account so looking for online brokers that offer cheap stock trades is very important.

You want to start by taking a look at how much and how often you trade. If you trade large lots of stock worth thousands of dollars it might be better for you to pick a broker that has a fixed fee but if you trade smaller positions then a per share commission is probably better for you in the journey to cheap stock trading nirvana.

It is the average per share costs that will truly determine if you are making cheap stock trades or not and good traders will constantly be monitoring their trading costs always looking for ways to improve their bottom line.

I would suggest researching various brokers and entering their costs into a spreadsheet along with your typical trade size to find out what the best commission structure would be for you.

Some online brokers will have comparison tables that always show their fees to be the lowest but they are usually always bases on fixed fees and as you now know a fixed fee approach is not always the best option in our never ending quest for cheap stock trades.

So, do your homework before opening or switching an account. Check reviews of any firm you are thinking of doing business with to make sure their site or trading app is available when you need it besides crunching the numbers if you truly want to realize the overall benefits of cheap stock trading.

This is because cheap stock trades are not so cheap when you can’t sell because a broker’s site is down and as each minute passes by all of the commission savings you have accumulated over the past x months slowly dissolve as your stock’s price sinks lower and lower causing you a greater loss than if you had been able to sell it when you wanted to.