questions → who buys stocks online?

vote-for16vote-against

Who buys stocks online?

Nov 3, 2011 11:08 PM

Pretty Curious. If you do buy stocks online, what website do you use, and why? I'm looking to purchase some stocks, nothing too expensive or too high in quantity, and was curious for some input before diving in. Thanks in advance!

espo92 espo92

8 Answers answer

Sort By:

vote-for6vote-against

I think we've chatted about this on Deals, once or twice. I have brokers (two, currently, although I'm thinking of adding a third). I do nothing directly. I pick up the phone, or drop by, and change things around every now and again, but not very often. In a comment somewhere, or perhaps a question, I pointed out a link that rated all the online sites, and it might be worth your while to find it. It was well written, and I'm sure is kept up to date.

If you're just buying to hold for a while, there's certainly a bit less overhead in doing it yourself, but there's still fees involved. I really love the markets, and have been known to watch Bloomberg TV (with the sound blissfully muted) for the crawls across the bottom of the screen, for hours and hours.

My one advice is to never, ever buy a stock because you have an emotional attachment to it. That way lies financial ruin.

[Edit] Can I say how happy I am to see GOOG at $597 ?

shrdlu shrdlu
vote-for4vote-against

I do my brokerage through USAA. Not the cheapest (nor most expensive) for trades, but I'm not an active trader.

Long term gains, I'm looking for the long term upward slope out of this hellhole.

atomicorange atomicorange
vote-for3vote-against

I've bought card stock online

capguncowboy capguncowboy
vote-for3vote-against

I do.

I use Scottrade. It seems pretty simple and effective. I think it's about $7/trade.

hackman2007 hackman2007
vote-for3vote-against

I've also used Scottrade for the last 7 years. $7 per trade if you do it yourself, and that includes stops and limits. They have pretty good instant streaming quotes. I've helped a number of friends get acconts there and learn how to use them and it's pretty easy.

What kind of investing are you looking to do? Short-term or long term?

I've got a main account that I use to supplement my income and another set up as an IRA to do investing for retirement.

mikecris mikecris
vote-for3vote-against

I used to do E-Trade for stocks. But, I had to rollover a 401k into my Schwab IRA, so started using a chunk of that money to do ETFs.

kmeltzer kmeltzer
vote-for3vote-against

At first glance I thought the question was

"Who buys SOCKS online?"

and I thought "OOO! Me!" But now that I see that it in fact says stocks I'm not nearly excited about the question...

I have bought several stocks online though. All through Sharebuilder.

justincredibleg justincredibleg
vote-for2vote-against

@shrdlu: And never, ever hold on to one because you "love" it.

klozitshoper klozitshoper

Stats

Asked
Nov 3, 2011 11:08 PM
Asked By
espo92
Answered
8 times
Viewed
827 times
Voted Against
1 time
Voted For
17 times

Similar Questions

Related Deals

Not a farewell, just a forced redirect.

It's true, Local.Woot is no longer, but please don't despair.

Never-ending savings are still to be found on Deals.Woot each and every day, so come on in. Don't think of it as a time for tears. Think of it as a way to bring us all closer together under one roof.

Sorry

This is only for people who have bought woots

We restrict voting to users who have purchased something from one of the other Woot stores. It's not just because we want your money (which we do) - it's the best way to be sure all the votes are coming from real people and not spam-bots or phony accounts. The best way we can think of, anyway. For now.

You can always get voting rights by buying something from one of Woot's other sites:

Purchases through Deals.Woot don't count, because in that case you're not buying anything from us. And we don't have your account information for those purchases.

If you think you've bought something from Woot before and still can't vote, make sure you're logged in with the same account you used to buy from us.

Geez, why so negative?

You have to vote up more before you can vote down.

Don't get us wrong. Negativity has its place. And downvotes are just as essential as upvotes when it comes to making Deals.Woot a useful place to find deals.

But when your votes lean so heavily toward the dark side, we have to wonder. Go vote up a few things. Accentuate the positive for a little while. It'll do you some good, and it'll do the site some good, too. Then you can get back to dealing out the smackdowns, OK?

Too late, we all heard you!

Hmm... you're wanting to take your vote back?

Well, that's a bit tricky. See, we do a lot of stuff with your vote, using it to work out the popularity of what you voted for, compare that to all the other things voted on, tally up our leaderboard, work out your reputation. Someday we'll do a little cartoon showing just how hard your vote is working.

Anyway, taking votes back messes all that up, so we give you five minutes, in case you just mis-clicked. After that we've got to say no take-backs. Luckily, votes are free, so feel free to throw them around left and right wherever you see fit.