Posted on February 27, 2010 by Carole Somer

The next most important difference between brokers is the types of investments available and the fees charged for them. Not all online brokers offer the ability to trade in mutual funds or options, or some brokers require special requirements to be met before trading in them.

If you want to trade in something besides stocks, it is important to make sure your broker offers that service. Some of the cheapest only brokers don´t offer a lot of options besides stocks as investment vehicles.

Another major difference is the amount of tools and information available on the website. For many investor´s, this is not an important feature because most of the information and tools can be found for free on other sites. Some investor´s, however, like to have everything in one spot and don´t want to spend time doing their own research. Generally the difference between the low cost and higher cost brokers is the difference in this category. The lowest commission brokers generally only want you on their site to execute a trade.

The last major difference is in the auxillary services offered by the broker. Some brokers offer services such as check-writing, ATM withdrawals and direct deposit. Again, this criteria generally is counter to the commission rate. The lower commission brokers won´t offer nearly as many auxiliary services as the higher priced brokers.