How To Choose a Broker for Day Trading
*Please see investment disclosure below*
These days, the economy is good. Even with the downturn in the stock market, the jobs are there and companies are hiring. Along with good times, comes a lot of people sitting in silly little cubicles, waiting for marketing consultants to bring about the hammer of doom on their livelihood. Which is why it is always smart to have a sideline. You need to have a sideline if you want to be ok when the layoffs come.
Day trading can be that sideline. Where else can you put in the time and learn what you have to do in order to be profitable and then be able to do it a few hours a day, with the right strategies and techniques. But first, you need to make sure you have the right tools.
Every trader is only as good as his or her online broker. You need to have the right tools in order to be able to do your job properly. So you need to make sure that you know which is the best broker for your needs as a trader or as a casual investor. Take a look at Capital One Investing to see if that platform has what it takes to meet your needs.
Day Trading, ShareBuilder, and Capital One
First off, a history lesson. ShareBuilder started in 1996, in the early, early days of the internet. It was a conservative outfit, that pushed stocks, mutual funds and exchange traded funds instead of focusing on day trading. Capital One bought ShareBuilder back in 2011 and then renamed the broker as Capital One Investing in 2015. The platform still is focused on casual and long-term investors, rather than the day traders.
One of Capital One Investing big innovations is to offer discounted rates on automatic investments. While the regular commission for trades is $6.95, the commission on automatic investments, where clients buy shares of stocks or ETFs at the same time each week, is $3.95. That gives Cap One an advantage over some of the big name brokers, like TD Ameritrade and Etrade, but it is above the discount brokers like OptionsHouse and TradeKing in terms of expense, so it is right in the middle.
The set it and forget it nature of the automatic investments is nice for the casual investors that do not want to think about their money too much. Customer service on the phones is pretty good across the board, but email response times could be up to 2 business days, which is not ideal.
And, true to form as a casual investor’s dream, the interface of the platform is very simple to use. There is not a lot to worry about when it comes to placing trades and performing research. The research is another strong point, since Capital One uses Morningstar as its research arm. The data is deep and it is pulled into portfolio and analysis tools that allow people to really make good decisions with their money. For day traders, that might not be all that they want. Capital One likely makes the most sense for casual investors.
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