Investing or trading with an online brokerage can be intimidating for people with limited experience in financial markets.  In fact, it’s quite simple and easy!  Today we will discuss the best online brokerage for beginners.

Our verdict: tradeMONSTER

While all online brokerages have web-based trading clients, they vary in ease of use.  tradeMONSTER’s software consistently ranks as one of the best platforms for novice investors, and ranks as our number one best online brokerage for beginners.

Why tradeMONSTER?

tradeMONSTER wins our choice of best online brokerage for beginners for three reasons:

1. Ease of trading a wide variety of instruments, from stocks to ETFs to options
2. Incredibly intuitive mobile application
3. Low commissions

Ease of trading

In my trading experience, I’ve found that most firms make it easy for beginner investors to trade stocks, but branching out into other instruments is incredibly intimidating and daunting.  Not so at tradeMONSTER.  tradeMONSTER is renowned for its incredibly intuitive options platform.  Options trading can allow investors to insure (or hedge) their positions by buying options.  Additionally, if an investor predicts a large move in the price of a stock, options allow for maximum exposure to the upside with a limited downside (strictly limited to the price paid for the option).

Mobile trading

tradeMONSTER has mobile trading applications for the most popular smartphones like iPhones and Blackberries.  Mobile trading allows you to invest and trade on the go, and makes sure you are never far separated from your portfolio.

Personally, I always like using a brokerage with a mobile trading application because I can quickly check my portfolio and positions on the run.  That way, if a trade isn’t going the way I liked, or if I have an idea for a new one, I can execute immediately.

Low commissions

When it comes to commissions, tradeMONSTER is one of the most competitive online brokerages in the business.  They charge just $7.50 per stock trade and have one of the cheapest options pricing scales in our side-by-side brokerage comparisons.

Small commissions mean that you take home a bigger piece of the pie at the end of the trading day.  Many studies have shown that beginning investors’ biggest fault is paying too to execute their trades; investing with tradeMONSTER will help you avoid this pitfall of beginning investors.

Sign up at tradeMONSTER today, winner of our selection of best online brokerage for beginners.  Best of luck investing!