Hook Me Up!

Online stock trading site Zecco.com has recently announced the addition of social networking features for their customers. Zecco gained popularity a few years back by being the first and only site to offer no fee stock trades. That has since changed to the requirement of a $2500 minimum account balance to get 10 free trades per month. The fee charged per trade now is $4.50. In order to add value and community to their site, Zecco now offers a forum, blog spaces, and explorable member profiles.

Me personally, I am strictly an amateur trader who was lured into actually taking the plunge into stock trading by Zecco when it did have free stock trades no matter your account balance. The other factor that finally got me started was that the site didn’t and still doesn’t require a minimum deposit to open an account. I started with just $25 and invested in a few penny stocks (stocks valued under $5 a share). Unfortunately my busy schedule hinders tracking of my account combined with the fee for trading a stock makes me a horrible investor. Therefor I am subject to the rise and fall of the one stock that I now own a few shares in. I do however check once in a while to see how I am doing and for the most part my investment has stayed at a higher value than at which I purchased it.

Another footnote in my stock trading experience is Wall Street Survivor. This is an online fantasy football type league for stock traders. You get a fantasy amount of money to start investing with and for a period of time you compete with other members to see who has the highest valued portfolio at the games end. Again my schedule kept from fully taking advantage of this opportunity to learn more about stock trading. There are social features at this site as well with members from all levels of trading experience from beginning to expert are willing to share knowledge.

I have no experience with Zecco’s community features but if it is anything like Wall Street Survivor’s it would be beneficial for everyone to take advantage. From what I’ve experienced there are many aspects of stock trading and only a small percentage of traders know every one. Online trading has opened the door for a whole new wave of younger and eager investors who can stand to gain a lot from networking with those more experienced.

All in all now that Zecco has the new features I do plan to take advantage and “step my stock game up”. For those toying with the idea of online stock trading I would suggest making sure you have the time. You’ll need time to research trading in general, different trading companies, and most importantly what strategies you will use in your investing. You can actually leverage Zecco.com for your research because you can sign up for an account and begin networking before you ever fund your account. It would be a very good idea to read the blogs and forums first then begin communicating with other successful investors by letting them know your situation. There should be no shortage of members willing to give advice. As with everything you should always use caution when taking someone’s advice. A word of advice from me would be always consider the source and do your own due diligence before making any serious moves.