Everyone has some kind of stock account these days. People have retirement accounts, vacation accounts, investment accounts, and trading accounts to name just a few of the types of accounts people trade stock trading ideas in. While some retirement accounts you don't really have a choice of where its held, especially if through an employer, all the other accounts you do have this ability. So doin some homework before opening an account will greatly benefit you in the long run and lead to less problems.

Most people think it does not matter when choosing a broker. They may go with whoever advertises the most, or who their buddy recommends. However, someone should research the details just as extensively as you would research a long term investment idea (well that is if you don't get them from the drunk guy sitting next to you at the bar …). There are three things anyone should consider before opening an account:

1. Does the brokerage allow direct access trading for your stock trading ideas and investment ideas? This one is a key - ignore the commissions, or offers for free trading here. If you are sending orders through a middleman before they get sent to the market, you are asking for trouble. Usually people dont realize this is being done, but it can cost you. Think about it, some of the stocks can move 20-30c in only a few seconds. If an order is held for matching or alternative execution for just 5 or 10 seconds and the stock jumps 30c higher, who cares whether the trade is free or not, you just paid a 30c per share commission to execute your stock trading ideas.

2. Do they provide decent software that is reliable. Again here, ignore commissions as a reason to choose a broker. It does not matter what the commission is or is not if the trading system goes down when you need to execute some stock trading ideas. I am sure a lot of you reading this have experienced that. Most of the time, it will not benefit you (that is one of Murphy's laws) and end up costing you a lot (several points sometimes, if its down for a long period of time. Make sure you research online and look in message boards about people complaining about the service. Even if you are not an active trader, having the system down when the market is active or moving because of major news is only a disservice and does cost you real money. Maybe not every time, but a lot of people don't really care until it happens to THEM.

3. What rate of return do they pay on free cash and what types of investments are available. Most will have a money market of some type. This is preferred - its considered an investment and is insured for a far higher amount than free cash is (usually only up to $100,000 by SIPC) should the brokerage fail. The one thing to look out for is for people advertising far higher than normal rates. Usually there is some kind of shenanigans going on there. Why would a brokerage pay people 6.5% in a money market when others are averaging 3%? Usually the reason is they are taking undue risk to generate the extra returns. After all of the subprime CDO investments that alot of money markets had and lost on, one must research the holdings of any money market these days prior to accepting that as a safe parking spot for cash.

In addition, the type of tools they give you to research ideas matters, as do commissions. But in actuallity, unless you are a super active trader, the commissions are so low these days it really does not matter much because of the competition for accounts keeping them low across the board.