What Is A Brokerage Account

In order to buy shares from the stock market, you need to open a brokerage account.

A brokerage account, also known as a securities account is an account where an investor deposit money with a a licensed brokerage firm, who places trade on behalf of the customer.

It is important to note that, although the broker execute the orders, the assets belong to the customer.

There are a few things you want to look out for when opening a brokerage account - the main considerations are: (i) platform fees, (ii) commission, (iii) foreign exchange fees that you need to pay per transaction.

Besides the fees involved, you also want to take a look at what exchanges do the brokerage allow you to invest in.

For example, for Interactive Brokers, many other exchanges such as US, UK, HK, AUS are available.

Opening A Brokerage Account

In short, the brokerage account is what will give you access to the financial markets in order to invest in the stock market.

And this essentially will be the first step to investing in the stock market - opening a brokerage account.

Before opening a brokerage account, there are few things to take note of:

*There are some brokerage whom gives pretty decent sign-up bonuses such as free stocks. These are ways for brokerage to reward customers whom use their services.

As details on various brokerage can change time to time, I created a dedicated blog post on choosing the brokerage which suits you. 

Disclaimer: Any securities or trades mentioned in this blog post is not a buy or sell recommendation, any form of investments have its risk and due diligence is to be performed before any investment.