Theresa W. Carey

Questrade is a Canadian broker, established in 1999, that offers resident Canadian citizens an alternative to trading and investing with the big banks. If you already have a registered account with any Canadian broker/financial institution, you can…

Lightspeed, founded in 2000 and acquired by Lime Brokerage in 2018, is designed for the high-velocity stock and options trader. You have your choice of several platforms, including their proprietary Lightspeed Trader and Livevol X, which is designed…

Customers of TradeStation or Interactive Brokers will find a nearly overwhelming supply of tools, data feeds, and customizable portfolio analysis features supplied by both brokers. Both have extensive connections to third-party apps, enabling more…

For online brokers and their customers, 2019 was the year everything changed. While small investors pulled out of the rising markets and sat on their cash, online brokers continued their race to zero commissions. Then Charles Schwab moved to acquire…

Vanguard Brokerage was introduced in 1983 by its late founder, John C. Bogle to enable clients to complement their mutual fund holdings with stocks and bonds. It was not and has never been designed for frequent traders or short-term investors, but it…

Robinhood's claim to fame is that they do not charge commissions for stock, options, or cryptocurrency trading. Due to industry-wide changes, however, they're no longer the only free game in town. The firm’s target customer base is young people new…

Merrill Edge has continued to evolve by making a deeper connection between the online brokerage and Bank of America's vast banking capabilities. The brokerage launched in 2010. Over the past year, there have been numerous updates across the online…

E*TRADE, an online brokerage pioneer, has been held back by higher than average commissions for the last decade. This changed in Oct. 2019, when E*TRADE joined a majority of brokers in cutting equity and per-leg options commissions to $0. E*TRADE…

TD Ameritrade remains one of the largest online brokers and it has continued to build on its edge with beginner investors. TD Ameritrade reaches customers and prospects with on-ramps to its services constructed on a variety of social media sites,…

tastyworks is a platform built specifically for frequent options traders. It is the brokerage companion to tastytrade, a sassy financial news and education platform. All of the tools are designed to get you focused on liquidity, probability, and…

Fidelity continues to evolve as a major force in the online brokerage space. Fidelity's brokerage service took our top spot overall in both our 2019 and 2020 Best Online Brokers Awards, as the firm has continued to enhance key pieces of its platform…

With so many different types of online stock brokers available to investors, it can be tough to choose one that works best for you. That’s why we put these U.S.-based online brokers through a comprehensive review process that included hands-on…

We are proud to present our top five overall online brokers for 2019: We have user-tested and reviewed more than 70 online brokers, examining every critical feature, considering their product offerings, fee structures, trading technology, research,…

Cost-conscious traders look for brokers with very low fees. Bells and whistles, such as fancy charting or idea generation features? No thanks, just make trading cheap. Hand holding? Investing education? Not so much, just cut costs. Another aspect of…

The online brokerage landscape changed dramatically in 2017 with the massive price cuts put in place by most of the big brokers. But 2018 was a rough year, with several of the largest selloffs in the market’s history, in terms of points lost. Many…

Fidelity takes the top spot on our 2019 broker roundup with a combination of services, tools, and value. Most of the changes the firm made in the last year were invisible to the naked eye as Fidelity focused on improving its infrastructure and…

Investopedia's mission is to provide investors with unbiased, comprehensive reviews and ratings of online brokers. We are committed to helping investors at all levels find the right online broker for their needs. To provide the best advice for every…

Investors may not have liked all of the news they got in the past year, but they can’t complain about their ability to retrieve, understand, and act on it. Online brokers have talked up “mobile first” development for years, but in 2017 and 2018 they …

The bull market is on sale for online brokerage customers. In the run-up to our 22nd annual ranking of Barron’s Best Online Brokers, two developments topped all others: The three major indexes—the Dow Jones Industrial Average, the Standard & Poor’s …

It has been a volatile ride for online investors this year. In the first five weeks of 2016, a typical stock portfolio filled with Standard & Poor’s 500 shares dropped by more than 10%. Happily, by last week, stocks had regained most of the losses, …