Original subtitles

Let's talk about how to choose an online stock broker and some tips around that and what to look for

when you're looking for your stock broker that you want to work with.

Now there are still full, full cost, expensive stock brokers out there.

There are certified financial planners and other types of advisors who can buy and sell stocks for you.

They tend to be more costly, but they can give you maybe more direct advice.

You're going to learn stuff of the course.

You won't need to engage with them, but if you want to, you can, but you'll be able to just place

your own trades as well.

That's the whole of the course.

So you can do all that and they'll save a bundle of money.

But if you want to use full time people, you can do that too.

And by the way, the tips Are you going to be in here?

You really could apply both online or more face to face as well.

But we're going to focus on how to pick an online stock broker.

So the first thing you want to do when you're searching is you want to make sure they're available in

your country.

That's the main thing you can have.

People say, Well, you should use ABC stockbroker.

While they're not available in your country, it doesn't matter.

You can't use them.

There's regulations around that.

So you want to make sure you're there in your country based on the regulations that they're regulated.

And then also everything will be in your currency.

You don't have to try to convert the currency or anything will be in your local currency, whether it's

rupees or euros or dollars or yen or whatever your currency is.

So when you Google, let's say do it just to do a simple internet search, you know you'll come up with

one site in your country or otherwise you could put in your online stock brokers in and then your country,

India, US, whatever it might be.

So first thing is make sure that you're available in your country and then you can even use them.

Next thing is you want to and this goes all throughout is the level of trust, right?

Bigger companies, companies with a lot of reviews, online things that you've heard of, you know,

there's a lot of trust around them.

You know, like TD Ameritrade, eToro is popular with a lot of students.

Interactive Brokers are real popular internationally.

Big mutual fund companies like The Reality, Vanguard, Schwab, you know, these are companies that

borrow a long time, and they're really well-known companies and very established.

So no what country and look for something that may be big and established an additional features and

things are going to talk about them more.

But in the end, if you can't trust them, if you think there may be kind of a scam, if the word scam

comes into your mind at all, you need to find a different broker.

Don't even start with them because it's all about trust.

It's your money, so you've got to trust them that they're not going to rip you off.

Then think about what type of investor are you, are you?

You know, going back to that or you real active trader?

Or are you more of a buy and hold trader?

If you're a very, very active trader, then you want to go with a broker that's going to give you a

lot of features around charting and technical analysis and things like that.

If you're more buy and hold, then it's less important for that.

Maybe you're looking for more things like education or ease of use or other mobile site or something

like that.

So you'll think about how you want to invest in the value in the company.

You'll look for those things that you're looking for, you know, you're specifically looking for that

they're going to meet those needs.

So think about what type of investor you are will help determine what type of broker works for you.

And a lot of it comes back into the next thing, which is the user interface, right?

Some are very simple, easy to do.

You buy, you sell.

That's about it.

You know, maybe some confetti falls down when you make a sale or you buy a stock, whatever.

And others can be really complex with a lot of charts, a lot of technical analysis stuff, a lot of

tools, you know, and which can be overwhelming for some folks.

So again, look at that user interface and decide, you know what works for you as you go through the

course, you're going to learn so much stuff.

So you're going to be comfortable with pretty much anything.

But in the end, it's still a personal decision as far as the interface and what you feel comfortable

using with.

Now, the thing is, look at what types of accounts are available.

You know, a lot of them are just, you know, traditional brokerage accounts.

I buy and sell a type of account and it's just it's with money that's already been tax, whatever.

It's after tax money.

But some might offer like before tax accounts like retirement accounts or savings types accounts.

You know where you can trade within a retirement account in the United States.

We call that like an IRA individual retirement account, you know, type of thing or for one K rollover.

Those are some of the type of accounts in different countries have different types of accounts that

might be more a retirement type account versus something that's not a retirement account, even though

you might be using it towards retirement.

You might have some tax sheltering ability, so look for the type of accounts that the brokers offer.

And does it meet your needs as far as you know where you want to?

You know the the way you want to have your money held in terms of the type of account?

The other big thing is looking at fees.

You know, there's fees can be account fees just for opening account or holding a certain amount of

money on account, having minimums, trading fees or you paying a fee for each trade each buy and sell

you paying a trading fee.

Those are miscellaneous fees.

Those are fees for like wire transfer moneys or withdrawing your money before a certain time in the

palace.

Around that, we're seeing a lot more of no fee, no transaction fee trading, by the way, which is

great in one respect.

You know, there's might have higher spreads or there's some there's some profit for the company behind

the scenes, but it allows you to trade more frequently than if you're paying, you know, two or three

dollars or more per trade.

That's going to be much more limiting for you, whatever you're getting your currency.

So look at fees is very important.

A lot of times, you know you can test drive a free version of your brokerage account.

Many are just free all the time, and they make their money on fees.

But others might have a pay version or a pro version where in addition, you pay maybe a monthly amount

in addition to other types of fees or other types of costs.

So Tesoro the free version first.

So they have that to see how it's working for you, that user interfaces have got all the tools you

want before you start paying for a pay version and take a look two or three.

Well, what if I, you know, cancel my pay version in my locked in for a year?

Or can I just end it right away?

You know, that's the thing to look at and then take a look at the analysis tools that are out there,

both from a fundamental analysis ratios.

Those types of things P ratios, all the different ratios and then the technical analysis or charting

stuff for moving averages to candlesticks.

All different types of tools that you can use to analyze again.

As you go through the course, you're going to learn all these different and analysis tools.

You're going to have some that are going to be more popular for you or going to work better for you

because you like them better.

And the economics for your broker provides those tools that you like, you know, as a good first step

would be really go through the course and then start looking at the broker, ideally.

But in between, you can look at some lessons ahead of time and compare to what your broker might offer.

Another big thing, the Umbro.

I'm real big on this paper trading.

You know, do they have paper trading available where you can practice before you actually use real

money?

Many brokers, most brokers offer this because they want you to practice.

They want you to practice on their site.

So this is the other benefit of paper.

Trading on a brokerage site is you're actually using their tools and you get kind of test drive it before

you get to see before you start putting in your own money.

So your paper trading is available.

So you can kind of give a test drive and practice while you're learning, but also learning on the brokerage

site that might interest you.

In addition is education.

Some brokerage sites are very bare bones don't give you anything.

And some are very extensive in terms of education, and they'll really promote that.

And you're going to learn a lot.

Of course, from this course, maybe you'll take some other courses from me, which would be wonderful,

would be great.

But also your broker might be able provide some education too.

And are they providing education?

That's really only about how to use their site, which is nice and how far they provide the education

and other things that might be interesting, or blogs or other types of information that might be of

interest to you and you might be used in your evaluation.

And then, you know, how easy is that to deposit withdraw funds right there?

The use of the currency you want to use?

Is it easy to move funny money in?

Is it really easy to move money out?

Sometimes it's easier to move the money in.

It's a little harder to get it out.

So look at those types of rules and things like, you know, how to deposit withdraw funds and what

works, how that brokerage firm works and whether it works for you.

And then customer service, you know, brokerage firms are real famous for customer service and really,

you know, talk a lot about that when you hit their website, others, not so much.

And you can, you know, look at things on the internet and can look at forums or just Google search,

you know, your your your customer service for ABC broker and you'll find all sorts of things.

Now, do remember that, you know, people are posting things they don't have are probably unhappy for

some reason or another.

So it may not be just that company.

It may be this.

They're unhappy and they're taking on the company because they made a bad trade.

But if you see it, start seeing things where like, I can't get my money out of this company and you

see that over and over and over again, then that's a little more scammy is something to be aware of.

So customer service can be very, very important in terms of of your broker.

So those are some of the things to look at as far as when you're evaluating a broker.

And again, you know, you can always pick one and you can always change your mind.

That's the best part.

You know, it's best to make a good decision the first time, because then you have to change your mind.

But we have to.

You can always get your money out and try a different one.