ShareBuilder: Buy Stocks for $4

Interested in buying stocks? Start with ShareBuilder!

Signup, deposit $25.00, and get a $25.00 matching bonus. Unlike traditional online investment services, ShareBuilder gives investors a simple, flexible and affordable way to invest for the long-term. Opening ShareBuilder account account is easy and only takes about 10-15 minutes. You will need to have the standard information required to open any financial account, including identification, address, SSN, employer information, trading experience, financial information, etc.

ShareBuilder is unique among discount brokerages because they promote automatic investing more than day trading. The folks at ShareBuilder believe the path to wealth is by growing your shares through long term investing, automatic investments, and dividend reinvestments, not short term investments or day trading. To encourage automatic investing, ShareBuilder offers very attractive rates for automatic trades and also allows fractional share purchases, so every penny of your investment goes toward purchasing the stock.

Select your ShareBuilder account level ShareBuilder has 3 plan options for customers. They are the Basic Plan, the Standard Plan, and the Advantage Plan. The Basic plan is free and offers $4 automatic investments, which places ShareBuilder among the least expensive options among online brokers. The Standard Plan costs $12 per month, and offers 6 free automatic investments an additional automatic investments at $2 each. The Advantage Plan is a little pricier at $20 per month, but offers 20 automatic investments with additional investments for $1 each.

Go here to sign up. I opened up an account in 2005 and it was very easy to use.