Online trading has gained immense popularity and the reasons for that are simple.
First of all, it is convenient and easy. You don’t have to leave your room. Who could have imagined a few years before to trade on stocks while lying on his bed with his laptop in front of him? But this is how easy online trading has become. And who wouldn’t want that extra bit of comfort.
Then there is the advantage of paying substantially less commission on your transactions. On the physical market the brokerage you pay is a lot higher than what you do while trading online. The online trading firms charge a nominal brokerage which hardly affects your margin. These firms make their profits by the sheer volume of trade they do.
With online trading you can trade at whatever time you feel. Yes, you can trade beyond actual trading hours of the market. So now you can come back from you regular work and before you go to bed spend an hour looking at your investments.
But while trading online, there are a few things that you should be careful about. We will try here to provide you with some basic indicators.
First of all, you must understand that however fast your internet connection is, and whatever software and hardware you are using there will be some time lag between the time you click to place your order and the actual time when your order gets processed and registered. This time lag, depending on how long it is can seriously alter your final gains or losses. What you can do is to see the time-lag is kept to a minimum. That would be possible if you have the best set-up in place and your trading firm provides its subscribers with the best service.
Secondly, you must get real time updates and stock quotes from your service provider. If it is delayed then you will be placing orders for rates which are long history. And then it will take further time to process your order. What you will finally get is something a lot different from what you were expecting. So the feeds have to be live and real time. There can be no two-ways about it.
Thirdly, see if your brokerage firm is giving you the best rates for the stock options you are going for. If your service provider is not getting you the right rates, then you have every reason to move to a different broker who will offer you better rates.