Online brokerage is a brokerage, individual of firm provide the trading services to its customers over the internet. They are more convenient due to their speedy process and usually low commission or discounts. They usually interact with the customers over the internet rather physically.
Online brokerage provides the complete array of investment options to its customers. The options for investment ranges from stocks, exchange traded funds, Bonds, CDs, Mutual funds and Dividend Reinvestment.
No matter how tempting it sounds one should be very cautious while investing through online brokers. All fine rules and guidelines should be thoroughly studied. Even if online brokerage costs are lower than those of full-service brokers, they can still add up, particularly if one does a lot of buying and selling. Online brokerages firms may also impose a number of other fees and charges that might add up considerably.The investor should be well informed about the stock he is investing in rather than just going for hot stocks. An extensive research and study should be done before choosing the online broker. Some of these services ask for as much as $5,000 minimum to open an account, on rare occasion even more. Others impose no minimum at all.
Some of the good and reliable online brokerage firms are Options house, Schwab, Loyal3, E*TRADE, Scottrade and Trade station.