Best online broker for stocks

Yes, you pushed the impossible into reality. You found the best online broker for stocks! In today’s competitive market, stockbrokers strive hard to offer their best services to customers to attract new customers and retain the existing ones. Many new entrants in the stock market often struggle to find and select the best online stock trading broker. After doing a thorough research and testing the stockbrokers on different metrics, we have compiled a list of the best online brokers for stocks of December 2020, making it easier for you to find your best broker.

What Is A Brokerage Account?

With a brokerage account, you can invest in various securities, such as stocks, bonds, mutual funds, and money market funds. Most brokerages also allow you to buy any number of different types of stocks and bonds in various markets, including the S&P 500, Dow Jones Industrial Average, and NASDAQ, giving you a broader market exposure and diversifying your portfolio. Broker accounts are also very liquid, meaning you can withdraw your money at any time, even if it may require the sale of your investment and capital gains tax.

Best Online Broker For Stocks

1. Merrill Edge

Merill Edge ranks first in our rankings for best online stock brokers of December 2020. Merrill Edge, formed after the Bank of America acquired Merrill Lynch, provides seamless integration of your account at Bank of America with your brokerage account at Merill Edge, allowing you to view your account activity simultaneously. If you want to open an account with Merrill Edge, it has no minimum account balance requirement. And the broker does not charge its customers for stock trading. Traders can trade stocks, bonds, mutual funds, ETFs, and options. To help traders trade on the go, Merrill Edge provides the traders advanced trading platforms for mobile, desktop, and iOs systems. Merrill Lynch Global Research provides research services to Merrill Edge. Morningstar, Trefis and Recognia, and CFRA, the third-party research firms, also offer their services to Merrill Edge.

2. Robinhood

Robinhood is one of the only stockbrokers that provides 100% commission-free trading to its customers in stocks, ETFs, cryptocurrencies, and options. The stockbroker also doesn’t require you to maintain a certain balance for opening your brokerage account.

3. Hugo’s Way

HugosWay offers an advanced MT4 trading platform, along with  24/7 customer support. MT4 trading platform ranks first among the best online trading platforms. “Hugo’s Way” takes pride in offering the best research reports to its clients, which traders can use to make trading decisions. Due to its excellent customer service, Hugo’s Way had quickly made its way into the best stock brokers list in December 2020.

4. E*Trade

With E*Trade, traders can now trade stocks, options, and ETFs without paying any commissions. The company’s trading platforms provide a wealth of data to traders, including real-time price data, research reports, news, technical indicators, price charts, etc.

5. TD Ameritrade

With TD Ameritrade, traders can choose to trade from a long list of tradable securities, including stocks, bonds, mutual funds, ETFs, options, etc. Traders can trade ETFs without paying commissions on their trades. If you are a beginner trader and are learning how to trade, TD Ameritrade has you covered. It gives you access to a trading simulator with virtual money, which traders can use to test and execute their trading strategies. Besides, the company allows its customers to trade using its desktop and mobile trading platforms.

6. Ally Invest

Ally Invest allows traders to trade with zero trading costs on specific U.S securities. You can open your account with Ally Invest without any minimum balance requirements. For options trading, Ally Invest charges $0.05 per contract with no base commission.

7. Zacks Trade

With Zacks Trade, you can open an account with a minimum balance of $2,500. The broker gives you access to multiple stock exchanges worldwide and allows trading in stocks, bonds, mutual funds, ETFs, and options. They are pretty affordable because the commission is as low as 1 cent per share. Besides, Zacks Trade allows traders access to free research reports. The broker’s trading platform offers an extensive analysis of the stocks that can help the traders trade more efficiently.

8. Charles Schwab

Charles Schwab is ideal for beginners and expert traders alike. The broker charges no commission and has no minimum balance for opening an account. Although, the company provides in-depth reports on stocks and gives investors equity ratings. These reports allow investors to understand the stocks they want to invest in better. The company offers a desktop platform, a web-based cloud trading platform, and a mobile platform.

9. TradeStation

As opposed to some brokers, TradeStation does charge commissions on trading, with commissions ranging from $0.01 to $0.002 per share based on the number of shares executed per month. The hallmarks of the company include the presence of an online community and free educational materials. The company also provides research materials to help its customers make buying and selling decisions based on the research reports’ findings and recommendations.

10. Fidelity

Fidelity does not have any minimum balance condition for account opening. The company also does not charge any commissions on trading stocks and ETFs. Although the company does not charge base commissions on options trade, it charges $0.65 per trade. The company has trading platforms for mobile and desktop operating systems. The company’s research reports provide great insights for its subscribers and recommend buying and selling stocks supported by the reports’ analysis.

The Bottom Line

To compile the best online brokers for  2021, we weighed the stockbrokers on various metrics. The brokers’ competition is becoming fiercer every passing day, with brokers offering more innovative services benefitting the traders in their online stock trading. This list shows a selection of an online broker with different offers for various needs. Keep in mind trading is risky, be aware of losing money. Do your research. Even then, there is a high risk. But on the other hand, also a chance to invest money in the long run.