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Maybe you're juggling a career and a family, and are wondering if you should consider opening an online brokerage account. You’ll be able to access your brokerage account online when it suits your schedule—plus most online trade executions offer lower commissions. Let’s begin by looking at what online brokerage is and how it works for you.
If you want to make your own investment decisions and carry them out over the Internet at lower commission rates than if you used a full service broker, then an online brokerage account could be for you. You can make as few or as many trades as you feel comfortable with—the only difference is that you're making the decisions for yourself. While the charges for trading online vary from firm to firm, look for more than the lowest commission fee per trade. You need to research all of the costs that the online brokerage firm charges in order to make a well-informed decision. Minimum balance requirements and maintenance fees can add up to offset what appears to be a low trading cost.
There are many online brokerage firms out there, and you need to choose the one that's right for your needs. Many of them evolved as part of full-service brokerage companies and some have existed for just a few years as online-only brokerage firms. There are also a few that have emerged as a hybrid of a bank and a brokerage firm. If you're interested in simplifying your finances, using one financial services firm for your banking and investing needs can potentially bring you time and money saving advantages.
Maybe you're new to investing and a little nervous about making trades on your own. Good online brokerage sites contain glossaries of investment terms to get you started. Free, unlimited access to news and research from independent, third party sources are also standard features. These reports can provide information on mutual funds and individual companies' stocks, as well as industry trends and market commentary.
One suggestion for new online investors is to ease into it by buying mutual funds instead of individual stocks. A mutual fund is not as risky as an individual stock because it is composed of stocks from many companies to provide diversification.* There are hundreds of mutual funds available online, including no-load funds that have no sales charges.
Most sites contain 'screeners' for stocks and mutual funds that allow you to input criteria that you find important— things like financial performance, size, and earnings growth. After searching the stock or mutual fund database, you are given a list of securities that meet those parameters.
Most online brokerage firms will have telephone customer assistance available. Typically the customer service representatives can answer questions about how you use the online trading site. They can't give you advice on what investments to make, but they can guide you through the online experience.
Wachovia Online Brokerage offers all of the features mentioned above, including research and news stories, stock and mutual fund screeners, and hundreds of no-load mutual funds from which to choose.
Wachovia Online Brokerage Demo
If you already have a Wachovia deposit account—like Custom Banking or Prime Banking—you can link it to your Online Brokerage account. Even better, our Command Asset Program unites your banking and brokerage in one relationship. Either way, it allows you to pay for trades automatically using the money in your deposit account, so there's never a need to fund your Online Brokerage account separately. Likewise, if you sell a security, the proceeds automatically flow back into your deposit account. So your money is always earning interest and you don't have to waste time writing checks or making deposits. It also means that, unlike most online trading firms, there's no minimum deposit requirement to open an Online Brokerage account at Wachovia.
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Wachovia Securities Command Asset Program
In addition to Online Brokerage, we offer free Wachovia Online Banking with any deposit account, which allows you to see your balances and account activity, as well as transfer funds between eligible accounts. The combination of banking and investing saves you time because you only need to go to one website—and remember one password—to see all of your accounts.
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