Getting More Revenue Through Online Brokers

One trick in the stock market that could allow you to get more money is by saving as much as you can. There are several ways to cut down on the cost of trades and they are sure fire ways to earn you more cash. Below are just some of the most common ways you can try out.

Getting Your Own Direct Reinvestment Plan

By doing this, you will be able to save a lot of money since the middlemen, knows as brokers are removed from the scene. You can use the money that you are supposed to pay them as an additional investment. If you have little capital to start with, you can go to companies that will allow you to trade a small amount first. This can be done if you have your own brokerage account.

Look for Free Trades

There are several online brokers that will allow you to trade for free so long as you comply with their rules and regulations. Zecco is one of such company and in order to get 10 free trades from them in a month, all you have to do is either maintain a $25,000 balance with them or trade for at least 25 times. If you are a day trader, there is no doubt that you will benefit a lot from this. However for those who could not be able to meet the requirement, all you have to pay is $4.50 per trade.

Friend Referral

In order to get more business, online brokers encourage their clients to refer friends. For every successful referral (this means that your friend have to open a brokerage account with them), you will be granted 25 free trades. One of the companies that do this is SogoTrade. Watch out for similar deals from your favorite online brokers.

Be Internet Savvy

There is no question that traditional brokers charge a lot more than those that are based online. This means that if you have the capacity to make your own sound decision in your investments, you should place your trades with online brokers. However beginners should seek help only from traditional brokers.

Why Pink Sheets Penny Stocks Are Risky

Penny stocks have gained their fame in the market over the years, and there is no doubt that a lot of stock investors are more interested in investing with penny stocks nowadays, even those who are first timers and do not really know how to buy penny stocks yet.

Penny stocks are defined as stocks that are sold at a lower price of less than $5 per share. As such, these stocks are not traded in major stock markets. Instead, we can see the penny stocks listed on over-the-counter (OTC) markets and pink sheet markets. However, unlike the stocks that are seen in over-the-counter markets, those that are listed in pink sheets are not required to file financial reports with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), because they are not regulated by SEC — thus, they are riskier and far more dangerous to invest into because there are virtually no requirements for historical or even current financial data for pink sheets stocks.

The term “pink sheets” actually comes from the color of paper the stock quotes were originally printed on, and they now trade on the Pink Sheets electronic quotation service. One of the most important points to note and understand about the pink sheets is that these stocks are not a registered stock exchange — they are just a computerized quotation system, and the stocks that are listed on the pink sheets are generally stocks that could not meet the specific requirements of a major stock exchange.

With this, the investors who still choose to invest in pink sheets penny stocks are really recommended to perform thorough due diligence on any potential company which they plan to trade penny stocks with. As a matter of fact, companies can actually vanish without a trace from the pink sheets — and one’s hard earned funds may vanish with them as well. In addition to the extreme volatility and unpredictability of pink sheets penny stocks, and due to these reasons and factors, the investors of pink sheets penny stocks are highly recommended to stick to trading or investing just enough amount of money which he can afford to lose.

Free Trading Friday In Your Tradeking Account

If you currently have a Tradeking account, they are having a customer appreciation promotion where any trade you make on Friday August 12 will be free. Per the small print in the email I was just sent…

No commissions will be charged for trades executed on 8/12/2011. Includes stock trades, option trades, fixed income and no-load mutual fund trades. Index option fees and option contracts fees will not be charged. Regulatory fees and Foreign settlement fees will still apply.

The email also goes on to mention that you will see the trade as normal (with commission added) on Friday, but on Saturday you will see that trade with the commission waived. So don’t worry until Saturday if you still don’t see the commissions waived.

This is obviously in response to the market volatility in the past few days, unfortunately if you are like me, all your money is tied up in stocks that have lost about 20% of their value. But if you are one of the lucky ones with some money to buy and an active Tradeking account, Friday could be a great day for you!

Unfortunately this is only available for current Tradeking account holders, but if you are interested in their $100 bonus promotion for new accounts, take a look at the Tradeking Promotion page for more details.

Fidelity Rolls Out eCheck Deposit for Smart Phones

Fidelity recently made updates to its iPhone and Android apps (sorry nothing for you blackberry users yet!) to allow for depositing checks using the phones integrated camera. You just go to the “Transact” menu on the Fidelity Moble App then select “Depost Checks”. From there you snap a picture of the front and the back of the check as well as add the depost amount and that is it. Like the other banks that offer this, you need to hold the check for a period of time, just in case they can’t make out the images on their end. Chase was the first large bank to roll this out, then followed by State Farm. It is nice to finally see the Brokerages getting into the game.

For those of you that are unaware, Fidelity offers an FDIC insured checking account called My Smart Cash Checking. This account doesn’t have any minumums and fully rebates all ATM fees. Having a checking account with your broker is great in the fact that you can have all your accounts in one place, and it provides for immediate cash transfers into your brokerage and retirement accounts.

Now with the check deposit feature you can have a totally free checking without even ever having to go to a branch. Not sure why they keep building more banks around where I live, since I haven’t actually been in a branch in years!!!!!!

$100 Brokerage Promotions

If you are looking to jump back into the market and are looking for a new broker, there are currently 2 active promos where you can get $100 when opening a new brokerage account. Here are the details:

$100 Tradeking Refer a  Friend Promo -  Get $100 when you open a new account, deposit $1000 and make 1 trade within 80 days. (See post for more details) – Note that this offer expires 4/14/11, so open your account today!

OptionsXpress $100 New Account Bonus – Get $100 when you open a new trading account with at least $500 and make 3 trades within 12 months of opening the account. (See post for more details) Note that it was just announced that OptionsXpress will be merging with Charles Schwab, so there is no telling if this offer will expire prior to the 12/31/11 date posted on their site.

I have accounts with both and use Tradeking for stocks and OptionsXpress for options. I really haven’t had any issues with either. I have had to call OptionsXpress’ customer service a few times but everything was resolved quickly.

Best Broker For Trading Penny Stocks

If you are like me, I am sure you receive the random spam email telling you about how a certain stock is going to double in value and you should get in right away. Well most likely they are referring to trading a penny stock. I never advise that you purchase anything from those emails. Usually the sender already owns the stock and is hoping that if you buy it will drive the price up so that he can sell, leaving you with stock that will probably never move.

I trade penny stocks and have been making a decent amount of money, but before I explain how, lets start with the basics. What is a penny stock? Penny stocks are shares of small public companies that currently trade for less than one dollar. Since the price is so low you can usually pick up millions of shares at a low price. The only issue with this is that the company could just go bankrupt, or the share price never changes leaving you with a poor investment.

Many people have made millions on penny stocks, buying shares up at a fraction of a penny and then selling once the stock rises over a dollar. Let me tell you, these are few and far between and even if you were lucky enough to see this, you probably had some insider information, which if you weren’t aware, is illegal.

Ok, so lets discuss my strategy. First off, any money I put into penny stocks is money that I am assuming I am going to lose. Great strategy huh? Well to be honest, I know the risks of penny stocks. So if I invest $500 say on a particular stock, the risk of losing it all is worth the chance that it quadruples in value. Now in some cases you can find a penny stock that is a circular stock meaning it goes up to a certain price, falls down to a certain price and repeats. So it you can predict the ups and downs then you can make a little money off of it. This is exactly what I have been doing.

The penny stock I have been trading is a company called Hard To Treat Diseases (HTDS). I chose this stock purely due to is circular nature. It fluctuates between $.0002 and $.0003. I have been buying $1,000,000 shares at $.0002 for $200 and selling all one million shares at $.0003 for $300. An instant $100 profit. I then put in another buy order to pick it up at $.0002 and repeat. I have done this 11 times in the past month for a total profit of $1000. This is not including trading commissions which I am about to discuss next.

Most discount brokers have low stock trading commissions, but most of them offer those low rates for stocks above $1.00. Once you start talking about buying and selling stocks below $1.00 that is when they start tacking fees on. Well obviously I couldn’t play this game if I didn’t find a broker with no fees on trading penny stocks. My current broker actually adds on $.01 per share on to their normal commission when trading penny stocks. Ok, so if I am trading a million shares, my commission is over $10,000. That is crazy.

After doing some reseach, I found that best broker for trading penny stocks happens to be Zecco.com. Their $4.50 trading commission is all you pay, regardless of the stock price you are buying. So I can buy 5,000,000  shares of HTDS for a commission of $4.50 and that is it. Zecco also has some other perks like 10 free trades per month when you have over $25,000 in your account with them, but I am mainly using them for buying low priced stocks.

OK, so again, I will repeat, buying penny stocks is not for everyone one. Most cases you will lose all your money, but there is the oppurtunuty for a big payoff if the company does well in the long run, or even if you can predict a cycle like I have seen in HTDS. Regardless of what you decide to do, make sure that the broker’s fees are inline with your trading strategy. With all the discount brokers on the market you should be able to find one that meets your needs.

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