Where to Trade – Should You Have a Stockbroker?
With the advent of online trading anyone can be up trading within 24-48hrs of reading the latest edition of “Stock Investing for Dummies”! However, from my experience online trading platforms are littered with financial casualties. Novice investors get torn to shreds not by the online platforms but by their own lack of knowledge, technical unfamiliarity, and the emotions of greed and fear.
Momentum trading through online platforms (e.g. OptionsExpress,, eTrade, SaxoWebTrader etc) requires you to develop Technical Analysis skills and have in-depth knowledge of technical indicators (e.g. Moving Average Convergence/Divergence (MACD), the Rate-of-Change (ROC) indicator, the Relative Strength Index (RSI), Bollinger Bands, Stochastics etc) and identify chart patterns (e.g. Head and Shoulders, Cup and Handle, Triangles, Breakouts etc).
If you do want to jump onto some online trading platform and begin stock trading then it can be a really good idea to begin stock trading with a virtual/simulated account. That way you make your mistakes using phantom money.
Even though I’m somewhat sceptical of the average stock-broking firms’ modus operandi, it can be a good starting point for budding investors. Treat the whole experience as an exercise in sleeping with the enemy! Sure, you’ll pay higher trading commissions than you would through an online trading platform and you may or may not make some gains. However, that said, you should at least avoid getting skinned alive and you’ll gain some valuable insights and knowledge from the process.
About Keelan Cunningham
Keelan Cunningham is an entrepreneur, multiple business owner, author, and personal finance/wealth building specialist. Keelan’s passion is helping people improve their business acumen and personal wealth creation strategies, so they can lead a truly wealthy life in all aspects and with any luck similarly transform the lives of others.
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