How do I find a cheap, easy to use broker? There are SO MANY - how do I chose? The ones I've heard about include Ameritrade, eTrade, Sharebuilder, TDWaterhouse, ScotTrade, Fidelity, the list goes on! What makes them all different?
What I know: I'd like do invest relatively conservatively (IE - no day-trading). I'd like to invest in ethanol. I'd like to invest for down the line…
The only resource I'm using now are
http://www.investingonline.org/index.html
Yahoo! Finance.
HELP!
Update:
I'm probably looking to invest a few thousand for now. That may increase but I dont foresee investing more than 5-10K.
As far as where I was planning to put my money - mostly in stocks in NYSE or Nasdaq. Prob not smallcaps/penny stocks, but I did have my eye on an IPO or two. BTW what are franchise stocks?
I was actually thinking about Sharebuilder - it comes highly acclaimed. Why is touted so much? Advantages / Disadvantages?

Investing in a mutual fund IRA for retirement may give you an income tax break. Talk to your tax adviser. You may also be able to invest in a stock mutual fund via a 401K plan at work.
Believing advice you get on Yahoo answers can be risky, so read these websites for further information. If you find it too confusing, contact a professional financial advisor. They will charge you significant commissions, however.

I do not know the laws in Canadian Stocks. You should consult a lawyer before you daytrade in Canada.
If you daytrade in the United States of America by Law you will get a Credit Line of at least $100,000.00 (This is called a margin account)
However, if you don't have assets of at least $75,000.00 (For example, a $25,000 car and a $50,000 property) that you can sell in case things go wrong I strongly suggest you NOT TO DAYTRADE ON MARGIN WITHOUT LIMITING YOUR LOSSES TO A MAXIMUM OF 25% (This means you will only lose your original $25,000)
If you want I can email the Daytrading Laws.
Do not listen to cgimwei.
You need at least $500 to open a brokerage account in Scottrade.com
Example 1:
You cannot invest all your money in just one company. Therefore we are going to invest $225 in each company.
You buy 10 shares for $225 in Wal-Mart
You buy 10 shares for $225 in Target
Let's say you got lucky and both stocks actually went up 5% that day.
Your stocks are now worth $236.25 ($11.25 Profit)
However, you already paid $7 when you bought them and you need to pay another $7 when you sell them
Therefore in this example you actualy lose money.
You also need to consider you have to pay taxes on your capital gains. (Consult your Accountant before you start daytrading)
If you need more detailed advice about daytrading drop me a line.

It is true that 80% of all day traders eventually lose all their money. Then again, about 60% of the remaining 20% make enough to live off of or at least provide a second income. The remaining 40% steadily lose money.
The keys to success in day trading (% of importance):
1) money management - knowing how much to bet on each stock, when to take profits, and when to cut losses (40%)
2) emotional control - patience, not acting out of greed or fear, never averaging down, only buying high probability set-ups, etc. (35%)
3) a good system - knowing when to enter and when to exit (25%)
You'll notice that the system is the least important factor for success. Almost any system is profitable (although some much more than others), but the real important part is whether you can actually use it correctly or not. It might not match your personality, for example. Also, if you don't manage your money correctly, you can go bankrupt on even the best system in the world.
Unless you have amazing emotional control, have a natural inborn talent for trading (I've never met anyone like this, though), or have a brilliantly flexible mind that adapts quickly, you will most likely steadily lose money day trading for at least the first few months.
The worst part about getting started in day trading is that there's very little way to tell if you'd be successful before you actually start buying stocks and losing (or making) money. Paper trading is not even close to the same as real trading, because there's no emotion involved, or commissions or slippage.
On the other hand, once you have reached the right point, the rewards can be substantial. It took me 15 months of swing trading and staring at computer screens all day long and three months of day trading (losing 50% of my entire equity in the process) before I turned the corner. Now, I can quite conservatively double my money each year (but notice it took me a year to recover from the first year and a half). That's probably a typical story. If you read about Stock Market Wizards by Jack D. Schwager, you'll notice that almost every master trader went bankrupt at one point or another.
Most people quit before they reach this point, and I'd be the first to agree that day trading is not for everyone, or even for most people.
Also, remember this: any person with a truly successful and profitable day trading system would never sell or share it. You can make much more money using a winning system than selling it. Okay, maybe 10% of the systems out there are legitimate, but you'll never know which 10% until you've bought it and lost lots of money on it.
Be careful when looking for winning systems, and always look for a money-back guarantee.
The key to success is not the system the person uses so much as it is the person using the system.
One last word of advice: Unless you're willing to sacrifice thousands of hours in front of the computer and thousands of dollars, and able to stand the emotional and financial pain you will endure, then don't even start.

You will need a broker to make stock trades for you but different types of brokers will charge different amounts. Full-service brokers will provide you with a lot of advice. However, their commission rates are much higher than the ones from discount brokers, who only make the transaction of the trade. Personally, I prefer discount brokers because they are cheaper and they allow me to make my own decisions.
I currently use Firstrade ( http://www.firstrade.com/ ). I prefer them over Scottrade because they offer free dividend reinvestment (DRIPs), which is essential for long term investments. They also have slightly cheaper commission rates and much lower commission rates when compparing to ther big name brokers such as Etrade, Ameritrade, and Schwab. Their customer service and website are great as well. I would definitely recommend that you check them out.
If you aren’t comfortable with your invest skills, instead of getting a full-service broker, I would suggest that you try mutual funds. Mutual funds are diversified, thereby less risky. They are also professionally managed so you don’t have to worry about what to buy or sell. To learn more about mutual funds, you could visit Investopedia ( http://www.investopedia.com/ ).

The traders have all the news well before you do, so if you are trying to nickel and dime your way to riches by picking a little spurt to long here or a little sag to short there, don't–they've already done it and moved on by the time you spot it.
Also, be very, very careful of the proportional share you trade with, compared to the larger account value. I was trading potatoes once, um, a while back, and some rich guys tried to steer away from a long-established trend. I got a margin call during one of their 'force it' moves and the brokerage confiscated my whole account value and sent me a bill for the rest. Instead of paying off my mortgage, I was paying on my debt for two years. Without the extra traffic, the general trend was right and I would have profited nicely–but I didn't have enough reserve for when it suddenly went radically against me. I do have one consolation, though, something like 90 millionaires got caught in a still larger default, and several dozen went to jail.
Feel lucky that your account balance is "slowly decreasing"–things could be much worse. Check the charts for agricultural spreads and straddles, many of the patterns I used to rely on don't work any more, but see if you can find some of your own, then play it safe. If nothing else, go to currencies and short the dollar and go long on almost anything else. Good luck.

1) available at low or no cost
2) would allow me to import a list of 100 stocks
3) would alow me to set up a dummy margin account where I could practice short sellin stocks
4) would NOT expire like after 30 days

If you need help with your investments there are many Financial Advisors or Portfolio Managers that can help you.
If you trade on your own it is very likely you will lose money.
I can advice you too.
If your car brokes you don't fix it yourself. Do you?

If u want u can get hooked up with one of these seminars and pay $2000-$5000 thousand for the seminar and then u take their advice and start trading and u lose tons of money. Learn from a real trading expert. Learn from me.
so how excatly does it work, is it as simple as buy it when its low, and say the share price triples, can u sell it for quick payoff when ever you please? or is it more complicated.

Start by reading the book Master the Trade by John Carter and then read Winning the Day trade game. Those'll give you a primer on which to build and will allow you to better ask your next round of questions. ![]()
You can also visit sights like eSignal and Kwikop to see some of the charting tools/indicators there are out there that you'll be needing once you do get started.
Hope that helps!
Are the London Markets as fast on Level 2 and are there any extra obstacles such as minimum Day Trading account balances or maximum round trips per day?
I use Yahoo News and charts on the American markets as a secondary back up tool but on the London markets their service is sub standard. I also use Knobias for News feeds.
What tools are needed for Day trading success on the London markets.
Iearned today of a 0.5% Duty on all share purchases In London so that is one reason it is not as good, Any others?
Any info, advice or experiences are much appreciated.

You can visit http://stocksguide.checkouttoday.info for some useful tips and info related to your query. Good luck!



