A stock broker is a direct link between the investor and the Wall Street. He is kind of a middleman who helps you invest your money into stocks of publicly owned companies. A stock broker enters and remains in the trade because he knows about stocks and shares much better than ordinary investors. He provides valuable expert advice and tips. So it is important that when you think of investing in stocks, you must be careful in choosing the right stock broker so that your financial interests are well guarded.

Try to find out a stock broker who provides services for the kind of investor that you are, a beginner who wishes to invest small and wants to tread cautiously, or, big and an advanced professional. You should contact the customer services officials of the brokerage firm and enquire in what way they can help you to build up a long-term, diversified portfolio without using expensive and complicated methods. Enquire about the range of products and services they provide before opening your account with them.

There are penny stocks, but some people advise against excessive reliance on penny stocks, According to them, you should invest in reliable high value stocks with strong fundamentals. Ask the stock brokers how they can help you to trade in valuable stocks if you are financially tight and cannot afford to buy their shares in bunches.

There are stock brokerage firms that can help you buy valuable stocks even if you cannot afford to buy them. They help you buy fractional shares of their stocks. In fractional shares plans, you need not buy say, a minimum of 100 shares, or more. You can buy just one share, or, even a fraction of a share. You can invest any dollar amount with no minimums and buy any quantity of a high value stock or an ETF. You can buy a thousand shares or even one tenth of a share.

To explain this further, let us assume, you want to trade in a stock, which is trading at $ 100 a share, but you can afford to invest only $25 per week. If you use scheduled investment plans, you can buy any fraction of a share at a cost as low as $1 per trade. In this way you can invest in stocks of over 500 companies with only a few dollars by buying fractional shares of an ETF or any stock for that matter.

Some stock brokers offer attractive plans for the new investors. For example, you can open a trade account and trade for free, of course, for a limited time. If you deposit $2500 account minimum, you can receive 25 free trades good for 90 days. You can use your free trades for both real-time and scheduled investment trades.

You must log on to the Internet and study the websites of as many stock brokers as possible. Study the ?About Us? and educational sections of the websites. This will enable you to learn what to expect from your stock broker and compare the offers of various stock brokerage firms.

Try to find out whether your broker offers fraud-protection measures. You cannot survive in stock investment market and earn money by merely investing a few dollars which you may easily afford to lose. You may need to invest huge amounts to make good profits. Your money is always at risk especially when you are trading online. Your account ids and passwords are likely to be hacked. You must ensure that the stock broker you choose provides you fraud protection through some kind of insurance scheme. For example, your account can be insured by the SIPC for $500,000, out of which a maximum of $100,000 protects cash and the remaining $400,000 protects securities.

Find out if the stock broker you select, provides multiple account opening facility such as Individual, Joint, IRA, and even ESA (Educational Savings) accounts.

What facilities does the broker provide for real time trade? What minimum amount you need to deposit. Some brokers offer plans that allow you to avail, say, $3.00 or even $1.50 per trade if you deposit a certain minimum amount with them. Some brokers provide for scheduled investment plans. Ask them the details of how you can do that.