Online Investing

You can place trades any time you want, day or night, regardless of whether the markets are open. If you want to check something before completing a transaction, you can stop in the middle without tying up a broker on the telephone. In most c...

The act of buying and selling shares has its own set of rules and terms. You don't have to be an expert in every type of trade available, but you can increase your success and avoid nasty surprises by taking advantage of specialized trade typ...

In the U.S., the stock markets and exchanges (New York Stock Exchange, American Stock Exchange, and Nasdaq) are open from 9:30 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. eastern standard time. What happens when a company announces bad news after the close of the mark...

Many online brokerage firms, such as TD Waterhouse, Charles Schwab, E*TRADE, Harrisdirect, and Muriel Siebert, offer dividend reinvestment services. With these programs, all dividends paid on stocks you own are reinvested automatically into n...

Academic research suggests that a properly diversified portfolio should include 15 to 20 stocks of varying sizes from disparate industries. Even if you have $10,000 to start with, that equates to less than $500 in each of those 20 stocks. Parti...

The organization that issues bonds pays interest to the people who loan them money—the investors who purchase the bonds. After a period of time, the organization pays the money it borrowed back to the bondholders. Many investors purchase bonds ...