Although some brokers may allow you to invest as little as three dollars to execute a trade, this kind of investment is suitable only for an academic interest. These small trades allow the investors to get a feel of the online stock trading. They allow them to understand the level of freedom and flexibility that online stock trading offers.

Online stock trading, like any other business, requires a sizeable investment to become a viable source of income, more so, if you want to make it a full time source of your livelihood.

Like every other business, stock trading has its own pitfalls which may land unwary investors into trouble. Ignorance cannot be made an excuse for losses and failures.

An informed and careful planning can minimize the losses and maximize the gains. Some of the salient points that you must understand before opening an account with any brokerage firm are:

1. There are hordes of online brokerage firms that offer attractive terms to lure the customers. Some brokerage firms offer lowest trade commissions, but over- charge you on other counts such as inactive account maintenance fees. Still others may insist upon very high minimum deposits.

If a brokerage firm offers lower charges on almost every account activity, try to search out the reasons for this type of all round munificence. Either there may be some trap, or, the offer may have really genuine reason.

Some brokerage firms have lower overhead charges which they distribute to their customers. For example, most brokerage firms receive their market data on rent from the data vendors like Reuters or Bloomberg. They, naturally, transfer the costs to their clients in form of higher commission charges and so on.

There may be other brokerage firms which have some agreement with the market data vendors and save by not having to pay rent for market data. This leads to huge savings to them and they transfer these savings to their customers by charging less fees and commissions.

These inside secrets cannot be found out by cursory search. You have to devote some time and energy to thoroughly search the website of each brokerage firm before opening your account and parting with your vital financial data.

2. You may have to abide by the terms and conditions laid down by your broker as well as NYSE and AMEX market data display services. For this you are required to check the appropriate boxes at the end of each agreement. You must read these terms and conditions carefully before checking the boxes. They are not mere formalities. Ignoring to understand them may lead you into problem at a later stage.

3. If you find it difficult to do the entire search by yourself, you can hire some investment advisor. You can save a lot of expenditure over the long time by making one time payment to your investment advisor.

4. ISP services that run the online trade sometimes break down. These technological glitches cause lots of trouble at crucial moments, more especially, when you are trying to place an order. The delay in execution may cause you losses in form of increase in the price of the stock if you have placed a buy order, or, in form of decrease in price if you have placed a sell order. You suffer both ways due to delay in execution of your order. You must talk to your brokerage firm to make sure that they accept the telephone instructions to buy and sell the stock in the event of any collapse occurring in the functioning of the ISP services.

5. If you want to trade on multiple stock exchanges, says, like NYSE and NASDAQ, you must ensure that your online broker has the technical capabilities to meet your needs.

6. Trading in online stocks is always fraught with risks. Be prudent in your investments. Do a thorough research and invest in the stocks of the well-managed companies. Unless you are a day trader, hold the shares for some time and do not sell them in panic if, sometimes, the price of your stock falls suddenly. Price fluctuation is a normal feature of stock trading. In all probability the price of your stock will rise over the time.

7. Develop the habit of investing regularly irrespective of the occasional slumps in the stock market. The other alternative is to reinvest your dividends in reinvestment plans.