Contour Enthusiasts Group Archives Forums General Common Interests Anyone do online investing, day trading, options?

Who do you use?

I'm thinking of opening a couple accounts.

www.sharebuilder.com

and

www.scottrade.com

I already have a small IRA with H&R Block that I opened in 2003 with part of my tax return, but the money is currently locked into a money market account until I jump through the requisite number of flaming hoops to be qualified to buy stocks online.

E*Trade has always been solid for me, used to do ALOT of trading through them in the late 90s.. Other brokers may be cheaper, but they offer the complete package, and when you start doing large number of trades per month, you can start trading cheaper.

Check out Interactive Brokers!!

take it from a person who is working in financial industry. stay away. day trading is for professionals. if you have 20-30 mils, even then it's best to invest in several hedge funds, rater than do it yourself. you simply lack time, nerve, education and experience to compete. extremely bright ppl, w/ PhDs and what not make money on paper, but frequently lose in real market. they work 18-20 hours a day, and then on weekends. their job is to take your money from you. in real life if you open your door into the traffic, people will try to swerve and avoid hitting it; but on the market they will tear it off with your arm.

there are better/wiser ways to invest. invest in good mutual funds - good performers tend to stay that way for several months. find several of them, like one specialised in value stocks, one investing in bonds, one in midcap, one working w/ international securities. invest in real estate. keep some money in CDs. find couple of good companies and buy their stock because you think their idea is good. but buy it to keep it for several years. diversify, diversify, diversify! and watch it like a hawk! and to be honest with you, you *may be* will see the level of performance of S&P 500 after 5 years of sleepless nights and a lot of gray hair.

i know it's not what you wanted to hear, take it fwiw

I've already got a deferred comp account at work that lets us invest in what they consider safe funds. Acorn Fund, Ariel, and Fidelity Fund are some of mine. That is where most of my retirement money (that I can self-direct, anyway) is held. I can't get at it until I retire.

I'm just kicking around the idea of opening an account, searching for a few stocks I like, and see if I am any good at making trades. If I get lucky, I'll probably sock away a hundred bucks or so a month when I can afford to and see where it takes me.

I don't know about day trading as compared to trading regular stocks (not funds and so forth). However I regularly trade small stocks online.

I bought shares in Sun Microsystems when they dropped to $3 and now they are up to about $5.5 or so. I also have other shares which have pretty much held steady, yet give me a nice dividend. Pretty much though I can make between $2/share and $10/share on a regular basis, say once a year. It doesn't sound like much, and it isn't. THing is as you make more money, your investments grow as you re-invest. You can use even just a little bit of knowledge to make a couple of bucks a share.

If you follow the basic rules of investing, then you should be okay no matter what you do. Investing is like gambling. Only put in money that you can afford to lose.

If you're serious. Give yourself a fixed amount you can invest, say $10,000 - $20,000, whatever you can afford. Then play the game and good luck to you. If you start to lose money though, get smart ... not desperate, and don't go getting a second mortgage to keep on investing.
Don't forget there is also the chance that while you're blinking your stocks will crash!