Online Investing Market Research Reports & Industry Analysis

Online investing is the act of traders and investors using online services and trading platforms offered by brokers. Online investing is more self-directed than traditional investing. Clients or investors tend to do more research on their own rather than seek advice from a broker due to this, online investing often has lower fees.

A brokerage which offers online investing will usually make a variety of tools and trading platform available to investors. Using this trading platform, investors can buy and sell foreign exchange, mutual funds, options and both fixed income and equity securities.

Online investing has some advantages such as lower fees and the convenience of trading online. However, it can be quite risky for investors who may do as much research as a broker or may not have the benefit of the advice of a professional broker or trader. Even just choosing the right online investment broker is a serious decision for an individual who chooses online investing.

When choosing to forego the advice of professional broker, investors should carefully research the sector and financial statements of any company for which they plan to purchase stock options. It may also be a wise idea to diversify their portfolio in order to mitigate some of the risk involved with online investing.

Some of the companies in the online investing industry are E*Trade, Scottrade, TD Ameritrade, Vanguard and Fidelity. More and more traditional brokerage firms, such as Charles Schwab are now offering online investment services as well.