Stock Brokers

Stock Brokers

You've got a grand in your pocket (actually, your bank account) and you think you can be the next Warren Buffet. You want start trading stocks NOW! What do you do?

First, chill out. Making a lot of money, quickly, in the stock market is extremely difficult. You can make a lot of money, sure. You just can't make it quickly. They've got laws against that kind of thing.

Still, if you're going to try, you'll need an on-line brokerage account. Below, our picks - The top on line brokerage firms for minorities and women.

Before we get started, the usual warnings and suggestions. Try to know what you are doing. Know the difference between a share of stock, a mutual fund share, and a bond. In other words, know what you are buying. The web makes it easy to do company research. See our section on investment information sites.

Foliofn

The new way to trade. Create portfolios of securities or open an individual trading account. More information below.

"What is a Folio? A Folio is a basket of securities. A typical Folio includes 30 - 50 securities. To be fully diversified, you may want to own more than one Folio. Experts agree that diversification is an important investment strategy, as it allows you to lower your risk and increase your returns over time.

Isn't It Expensive to Diversify? Not with FOLIO Investing! We have several diversification packages that allow you to trade commission-free by paying a low flat monthly or annual fee. In fact, you get up to 500 Commission Free Trades a month! Our flat fees are often less than the cost of a SINGLE TRADE with most other brokerages. We even offer a pay as you go plan, where you can buy and sell securities for $4.00 a trade. Compare us on these grounds and you'll see why we beat the competition easily!

FOR EXAMPLE:

At a typical brokerage, you pay commissions for every trade you make. If the commission is $30.00 per trade, and you wanted to build a 30 security portfolio to lower your investment risk, you would pay $900.00 to build your portfolio! At FOLIOfn, it could cost you as little as $14.95 a month to build the same portfolio.

Is There Any Account Minimum?

There are no account minimums to invest. FOLIOfn gives you the freedom to start with any dollar amount you want.

Can I Own Fractional Shares?

Yes, you can invest in any dollar amount you want and own fractional shares of security. The dollar amount you want to invest can be spread out over any number of securities you choose. No longer do you have to save a certain amount of money to buy whole shares. The example below shows the Folio 30 $1,000 dollars invested. See how you can simply own 30 securities with a minimal amount of investment?

How Can I Build or Buy a Folio?

You can build or buy a Folio in one of three ways:

Use our FOLIO Wizard to find a Folio that matches your investment goals.

Choose from over 100+ Ready-to-go Folios, each of which can be used as is or customized to fit your needs.

Build it yourself, security by security or trade individual securities.

You are able to buy, sell or trade securities in your Folio commission-free in our daily windows. Click here for our current window trade times and frequency. Window trades allow us to keep our costs as low as possible and pass the savings on to you, and they can provide you with better executions than you would otherwise get on your own. You can also make traditional real time direct to the market trades for only $14.95 a trade!

Why Don't I Have to Monitor 30-50 Securities?

The best part about owning a diversified portfolio of securities is that the more securities you have, the lower your investment risk. No longer do you have to bet on one or two individual securities and spend a ton of time researching the companies to know when to buy or sell. And, with FOLIO Investing, you can rebalance your portfolio back to its target weights in one click, keeping your portfolio fine-tuned so that one company doesn't account for the majority of your portfolio. If you don't rebalance, over time a Folio's level of diversification may deteriorate as the securities in a Folio increase or decrease in value."

Really, the best way to go.

Other sites:

www.gomez.com - See how your broker ranks.

www.tradingdirect.com - Also $9.95 per trade. Here's how they answered our survey:

1. How long have you been on the internet?

2 years (as of 1999)

2. Do any sections on your site target or seek to serve women and/or minorities?

No, our site does not target any specific group.

3. If you are a lending or venture capital institution (a venture capital fund, bank, thrift, or payday loan company), do you have data that shows the number of on-line loans or investments made to women and/or minorities in 1998 or so far in 1999? Could you send that data us?

We are neither type of institution.

4. Please tell us about your founders, owners, employees, and partners.

30 total employees, about half women.