Hi, after what happened on 9-11 we should all pitch in and help out the stock market. But most of us are never or rarely trade stocks. To be quite frankly, the commission fees are just to high to ever be able to be in the money. I have checked out sharebuilder.com. the bad thing about sharebuilder is that it is not a live trade. By the time your trade is executed prices would have changed dramatically. After some research I stumbled on a site called brokerageamerica.com. they offer commision free trading. The catches are that the support is minimum ( you have to fend for yourself ). I don't have enough knowledge to even try to explain how they make money, but check out the site. leo here is a exerpt from the site explaining the way they make there money : How do we make money? As a market maker, we make money by providing liquidity, assuming risk, and from a portion of the difference between the bid and offer price for a stock, the way market makers always have. This includes all market makers, even those your current online broker uses. As a result, we don't need to charge you a commission on market or stop orders. And on every stock trade you make, including limit orders, we can pass a portion of the payment for order flow back to you. Think of it as an incentive from us to you. The way it used to be an incentive from the market maker to the broker. Of course, since there's no difference between the bid and offer price on a limit order, we charge you $5. So we make money that way. And we save money simply because our business model is more efficient, by using advanced cost saving technologies, and also by eliminating the middleman.
the problem lies not in stock, but the underlying economy. Buy a plane ticket and fly somewhere if you really want to help the industries hit hardest..
Very true, but what I meant is if you where planning to open a account, why not save on some commision fees.
To help NEW YORK CITY, are car dealers selling NOTHING near WTC? Are airports open now? What is the closest airport? JFK? LAGUARDIA?
The underlying economy is doing pretty well when you consider everything that has happened. Things are uncertain for the moment, but our economy is not doomed. Don't be silly and gamble with money you don't have, and you can't be a daytrader if you've never bought stock before, LOL, so the fluctuations in price during the day are insignifcant. I mean, how far ahead can you look? You have to look ahead and be patient. There are excellent companies out there on sale right now. It's a great time to start. Nobody's going to get rich overnight investing $1,000 or $2,000, but if you invest in companies that are strong, and have a good track record, how can you go wrong? Stocks go up and down. I am not a big time investor, I invest a specific amount each month and I choose the companies as carefully as I know how, LOL, and I pretty much hold onto them through the hard times. I was blasting Providian earlier, but they have been through bad times before, and come out of it. They've done some stupid things, and made the necessary corrections. They have split 3 times since I started buying them (that was when they were Capital Holding). Am I going to sell it now? Heck no. You don't buy high and sell low, that is how you lose money. If you want to buy low and sell high, buy it now and hold onto it come hell or high water, because things will get better, and good companies will make money in the long run. A lot of the selling that is going on is institutional investors - the pension funds. They have to have a certain rate of return now, and so they have a point where they have to change where they put their money. Look at how many stocks have been upgraded to buy and strong buy and aggressive buy (Raytheon, LOL): http://biz.yahoo.com/c/20010917/u.html?.pvn This is my opinion, not professional advice.
