cheapest way to buy stock online? (1 Viewer)

[p5woody]

First time buying stock on my own. I have retirement savings through my employer's 401 and other retirement savings through a financial advisor. This will be my first time buying stock on my own. I know the stock I want and don't need advice, I just need a way to buy the stock as cheap as possible. any recommendations?

 

[redwine]

Robinhood. Completely free.

 

[Ethan]

Robin Hood app. 0 fees

 

[Darson]

Who is your retirement plan provider? If, for example, it's Vanguard you can open a brokerage account with them using the same login etc for your 401k. That's what I do. They are currently offering free trades.

Edit: They used to charge $7/trade for the first 20 then $20 after. After reacting to Robinhood, they're now free.

 

[Jz44]

I haven't used it, but I've heard the Fidelity app is essentially the same as Robinhood.

There's a small fee if you're trading options, but I believe stocks are completely free. They're supposed to have better research and some teachings for beginners as well.

 

[Frogzilla]

E*TRADE is free too. All of them maybe

 

[BirdCage]

Robinhood.

 

[DrStrange]

There is rarely a 'free lunch'. Free trades? Makes me want to look at the fee structure really hard. There are expenses that someone has to pay. And how are they paying for their TV budget? Are there monthly account fees? Please look hard at anything promising free trades. There will be a catch.

< one thing to watch for is getting screwed on the price of the stock. Say you are buying Apple at $252.00 bid / $252.02 ask but the price you paid was $255.00, three dollars higher per share. There is the fee, buried in the details of the transaction. Still ok if you just bought a single share, but rather high if you bought ten shares. >

I have a question - are we talking about odd lots or round numbers of shares? Anything less than 100 shares is an odd lot. Lowest transaction cost isn't one of the key questions if this is about five and six figure stock purchases. Lowest cost is a huge deal if we are talking ten shares or less. So much depends on the scale of the transaction.

Please be cautious, the lowest price is often not the best deal -=- DrStrange

 

[Lemonzest]

There is rarely a 'free lunch'. Free trades? Makes me want to look at the fee structure really hard. There are expenses that someone has to pay. And how are they paying for their TV budget? Are there monthly account fees? Please look hard at anything promising free trades. There will be a catch.

< one thing to watch for is getting screwed on the price of the stock. Say you are buying Apple at $252.00 bid / $252.02 ask but the price you paid was $255.00, three dollars higher per share. There is the fee, buried in the details of the transaction. Still ok if you just bought a single share, but rather high if you bought ten shares. >

I have a question - are we talking about odd lots or round numbers of shares? Anything less than 100 shares is an odd lot. Lowest transaction cost isn't one of the key questions if this is about five and six figure stock purchases. Lowest cost is a huge deal if we are talking ten shares or less. So much depends on the scale of the transaction.

Please be cautious, the lowest price is often not the best deal -=- DrStrange

I am no expert but this is how I feel about Robinhood. It just seems too good to be true. No way I would put any large sum with them. I would go with E trade or any other big online company and pay your fees.

 

[juankay20]

Just a heads up - Robinhood's app crashed twice over the last week for different reasons. I started using Fidelity a couple of years ago, and I believe there is no fee as well.

 

[BNM]

TD Ameritrade (soon to be Schwab) now has $0 commissions for most stock purchases. Much longer pedigree and probably better infrastructure and tools than RobinHood. As the guru @DrStrange said, be cautious and aware of fees.

 

[BNM]

Just a heads up - Robinhood's app crashed twice over the last week for different reasons. I started using Fidelity a couple of years ago, and I believe there is no fee as well.

Yes, couldn’t remember when that was. Believe it was a coding error. Yikes!

 

[Davism72]

I love Betterment, but I'm kind of a noob.

 

[Frogzilla]

There is rarely a 'free lunch'. Free trades? Makes me want to look at the fee structure really hard. There are expenses that someone has to pay. And how are they paying for their TV budget? Are there monthly account fees? Please look hard at anything promising free trades. There will be a catch.

< one thing to watch for is getting screwed on the price of the stock. Say you are buying Apple at $252.00 bid / $252.02 ask but the price you paid was $255.00, three dollars higher per share. There is the fee, buried in the details of the transaction. Still ok if you just bought a single share, but rather high if you bought ten shares. >

I have a question - are we talking about odd lots or round numbers of shares? Anything less than 100 shares is an odd lot. Lowest transaction cost isn't one of the key questions if this is about five and six figure stock purchases. Lowest cost is a huge deal if we are talking ten shares or less. So much depends on the scale of the transaction.

Please be cautious, the lowest price is often not the best deal -=- DrStrange

The zero commission trade thing was a market-forced move last year and they all suffered a bit for it. They still charge commissions for options but the majority of revenue comes from net interest margin of cash deposits held in accounts (just like banks)

 

[Ethan]

The zero commission trade thing was a market-forced move last year and they all suffered a bit for it. They still charge commissions for options but the majority of revenue comes from net interest margin of cash deposits held in accounts (just like banks)

This. Robinhood has low customer service costs. The app does most of the work for them.

 

[Coyote]

Certainly cheapest way to enjoy live-stock online

 

[p5woody]

There is rarely a 'free lunch'. Free trades? Makes me want to look at the fee structure really hard. There are expenses that someone has to pay. And how are they paying for their TV budget? Are there monthly account fees? Please look hard at anything promising free trades. There will be a catch.

< one thing to watch for is getting screwed on the price of the stock. Say you are buying Apple at $252.00 bid / $252.02 ask but the price you paid was $255.00, three dollars higher per share. There is the fee, buried in the details of the transaction. Still ok if you just bought a single share, but rather high if you bought ten shares. >

I have a question - are we talking about odd lots or round numbers of shares? Anything less than 100 shares is an odd lot. Lowest transaction cost isn't one of the key questions if this is about five and six figure stock purchases. Lowest cost is a huge deal if we are talking ten shares or less. So much depends on the scale of the transaction.

Please be cautious, the lowest price is often not the best deal -=- DrStrange

I also believe nothing is truly free, there is always a catch. This is why I asked!

Answer to your question, I haven't decided exactly what I am buying yet. I will be buying 100 shares in up to three different companies. Current cost/share will range between 10 - 20/share. My financial advisor said it would cost between $60-$75 if I went through him for all three transactions. I was okay with that, but he was the one that recommended looking at E-trade or something similar.

 

[redwine]

it really is free for you. these places are sipc insured, just like your bank is fdic insured. i would think that they are making interest off your money while the money is in the brokerage or something before/after you buy. if you consider those few cents a cost to you, then i guess it's not free.

 

[Frogzilla]

I also believe nothing is truly free, there is always a catch. This is why I asked!

Answer to your question, I haven't decided exactly what I am buying yet. I will be buying 100 shares in up to three different companies. Current cost/share will range between 10 - 20/share. My financial advisor said it would cost between $60-$75 if I went through him for all three transactions. I was okay with that, but he was the one that recommended looking at E-trade or something similar.

The only catch is they (big online brokers like TR Ameritrade and E*TRADE) don’t pay you much interest on uninvested cash sitting in your account. They don’t charge any trade commissions or make money off the bid-ask spread on your share as Dr Strange was speculating...not sure where he got that info from. No commission at all for basic trades.

Again they do charge commissions/fees for stuff like margin, options, employer stock plans, etc but basic trades like you want to do are given away for absolutely free in a chance to make money on other products (like uninvested cash)