Online Stock Trading, Is It Here To Stay?

Posted by Nick Niesen on November 8th, 2010

Trading stocks on the internet is a relatively new thing for most people but it won?t be for long. The only reason that it is new in the first place is that the internet is new relatively speaking. In 1999 a little under 3 million people traded over the internet, now online stock trading has ballooned with more than 10 times that number of people trading daily.

So why have people begun to do this? Why is it so popular? Well there are several reasons and some are good and some are not as sound when you think critically. The most popular reason cited for online stock trading is that they no longer have to forfeit some of their earnings to brokers in fees charged per trade. This doesn?t get them out of being charged fees per trade but it does cost a lot less to do it yourself with one of the dozens of day trading companies that there are available on the internet.

People are often trying to get away from brokers all together for more than just the fees they charged. Many people are fed up with brokers who did poorly in the recent downturn in the market. Their performances were sub par and people lost a lot of money so you can?t blame them. However the word of caution is to not lump all brokers into the overpaid and under skilled group. There are many brokers who are well worth their weight in gold because they know the market so well and have such good instincts?this shouldn?t be your only draw to online stock trading.

Other reasons people left their jobs to go into full time trading on the internet because they think that they can do better at it than at their real job and it will be more fun to boot. There is a certain romantic idea that people have about sitting in their beautiful home sipping gourmet coffee and checking in on their online stock trading portfolios a few times a day while making hundreds of thousands of dollars. This is a dangerous move for lots of people because they have no idea what they are getting into.

In order to be successful you have to have knowledge of the world?s economies and how that can be affected by the current events of the day. You also have to be good at evaluation of companies as far as potential for profit and so on. The third thing that you must have is nerves of steel and a loose grip on the money that you are trading with. Many day traders (or former thereof) will tell you of the ?hits? they have taken totaling many thousands of dollars in a few hours for a wrong move.