What service do you use to occasionally buy stock--not heavy users?

[heatherdeg]

I'm mildly overwhelmed at the sheer number of services out there that enable you to buy stock.  We are by no means regular buyers of it, but we once in a while we come across a company where we feel like we actually have enough knowledge and information to make an investment (and so far, we've done REALLY well that way, but again--not in large numbers :)  ).

It's been many years since we've been in a position to do this and back then, I worked for a bank where it didn't cost us anything to buy and sell our shares.  Now that's not the case.

I should note that we usually wind up buying shares in 2-3 companies at a time, but only like once every few years.

Thoughts on the most cost-effective way to do this?  Any recommendations for online services or companies that are good for this kind of "investor"?  :)

TIA!

[Juvysen]

we have a td ameritrade account for about exactly what you're suggesting.  We've had it for about 10 years (used to be td waterhouse) and have been happy, so far, but they used to have some sort of charge if you didn't buy enough stock per month or something?  I'm not sure if they do anymore, but back then we had found some sort of work-around so we didn't get charged.

[Otto]

Scottrade and Fidelity are established names with low fees, and the former I know has no inactivity fee. Zecco might be worth looking into; I've only recently heard of them.

[sunnysandiegan]

We have a similar story, but we probably own more stock than you do. I used to work for a credit union in the securities subsidiary. I received nearly everything at NAV, which is such a nice perk!!!! The accounts I've left alone have remained at NAV, which has been awesome. When I worked there, we had an arrangement with Sharebuilder for credit union members who wanted to DIY stocks. (This was awhile back and lots of things have changed since then.) The VPs and Pres at the c.u. had accounts with e*trade.

Anyway, in more recent years, DH & I have used both e*trade and sharebuilder (now owned by ING Direct). We ended up transferring the account at e*trade to Sharebuilder because the fees were getting too high at e*trade. Also, we got an offer through Costco for free trades at Sharebuilder. Sharebuilder offers several levels of investing. I mostly leave us on the 'basic' plan. When I want to purchase anything (they offer more than stocks now), I will do the cost analysis and see if the 'advantage' plan would be better for that month. It's simple math ($4 a trade vs. up to 12 trades for $12 a month vs. fancier stuff for other types of trades) and I've gotten free trade credits from them intermittently, too. My Roth IRA trades were all free last year, as an example.

If you are a member of Costco, go to their site and click on 'services' at the very top, then click on 'online investing' on the left to see what they are offering at this time. Firefox blocked the pop-up for me (my default setting), so I don't know the info or I'd just tell you.

[heatherdeg]

We're not members of Costco.  We recently revisited that decision and still couldn't find enough of a reason/savings to do it.

I'll have to look at each of these.  Thanks... it at least whittles down the choices a bit.

[deditus]

ScottTrade