Making Technology Work For You: The Best Day-Trading Software On the Market Today

This is a guest post by Alexis Bonari

An average individual making a foray into online stock trading is faced with a bewildering array of online brokers. Each promises to offer the most security, the best rates, and the best online interface for the money. While most of these companies offer significantly lower per-trade fees than going to a physical broker, there are still significant advantages and disadvantages to consider when picking an online brokerage.

Here are three of the highest ranked online brokers to date:

1. optionsXpress
(www.optionsxpress.com)
While it fails to offer FOREX or international trading, optionsXpress offers the most options to control your portfolio of any of the major online brokers. The small-time trader will be pleased to note that there is no minimum account balance required and the fees are flat rate. The program also covers IRA’s and education savings plans. No additional fees are charged for direct help from a broker.

2. Trade King
(www.tradeking.com)
The award for lowest price per trade goes to Trade King at $4.95/trade. Included with the online access is a simulator that allows you to “trade” with fake currency. For the inexperienced online trader, this feature would be beneficial for testing the trading waters or for testing out a particular financial strategy. Trading screens and all other interfaces are well designed and easy to understand.

One of the downsides to signing up with Trade King is the five-day waiting hold after setting up an ACH link for money transfer. In other words, getting started trading stocks takes time if you are adding a new bank account or setting the account up for the first time.

3. Zecco
(www.zecco.com)

If free trades aren’t enough reason to switch to Zecco, I don’t know what is. This policy only applies when you have $25,000.00 in the account or perform 25+ trades per month. Customers who go beyond their 10 free trades for the month are charged $4.50 for each trade thereafter.

The only major downside to Zecco is how much they charge for IRA’s. With a $30 annual fee and a $30 closing fee, your IRA might make more money elsewhere. Also, Zecco does not feature no-fee mutual funds. You are charged a $10 fee for each mutual fund purchase.

Bio: Alexis Bonari is a freelance writer and blog junkie. She is a passionate blogger on the topic of education and free college scholarships. In her spare time, she enjoys square-foot gardening, swimming, and avoiding her laptop.