stock buying

[Darth Wagtaros]

I just wanna buy a little bit. Is there way to buy stocks online without spending a fortune on fees and such?

[Admiral Yi]

No account fee on Etrade.  Just $9.99 to buy US stock.  I think new accounts get a guagoolian free trades for two weeks.  (They charge you up front then reimburse you after a month or so.)

Tell 'em Yi sent you.

[OttoVonBismarck]

Scottrade and E*Trade both are free accounts last I checked; Scottrade I believe it is $7 commission on purchases. E*Trade is $9.99 but you do get 60 days of free trading which isn't a bad perk.

I think both of them also offer free ETF purchases now, and depending on what your investment intentions are you can go far just on that alone.

I personally use Vanguard, but they aren't a good option for this purpose. (I use them because many years ago I opened an account with them to buy into Vanguard index funds, and now it's my primary personal retirement account so I have enough assets in the account that I qualify for $2/trade unlimited trading so I also use it for stock purchases.)

[OttoVonBismarck]

If you're just looking to buy a specific company's stock and not just general stock purchasing you should google "[company name] direct stock plan" or "[company name] dividend reinvestment" some companies offer a plan where you can buy stock directly from the company. While it is entirely limited to specific companies, it's very difficult to get any cheaper than that for buying equities directly.

I have some money in a few direct purchase plans, most of them you typically can open with $50, a few of them charge like a $10 fee the very first time you purchase (but it's once in a life time) and after that you can make regular purchases as low as $25 with no commissions ever charged.

[Admiral Yi]

I looked over the comission free ETFs offered on Etrade and they're a pretty weird bunch.  Mostly currency and commodity bets.

[Phillip V]

I use Scottrade; $7 per trade.