Free Stock Trades?!

I ran into this article in USA Today while I was at lunch about this company called Zecco offering free stock trades. It is a financial community so you get free tips, forums, and FREE TRADES. Bank of America also has a similar scheme, but you need to have $25,000 in deposits at the bank. Zecco requires a $2,500 deposit amount. Zecco says that it typically costs around $2 for a broker to execute a trade and they can make it up on margin interest and other fees such as options contracts. In any case this is worth checking out if you are an active trader. I’m waiting to find some more reviews to see how their execution is.

Another low cost option is Interactive Brokers. They offer trading at extremely low prices, international market trading, as well as commodity trading. For example for stock trading it is only .005/share with a minimum of $1/trade. You can do a round trip trade for as little as $2. I know an individual that is able to go in and out and make as low as $20 per trade using Interactive. I’m still on e-Trade ($20 roundtrade). I can’t do that trade and make money.

It is an excellent platform for the sophisticated trader and excellent for day-trading or general investing. You can open an account completely online without having to fax any documents. You can do digital signature to get your account opened.