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Trading Places: The Top Online Brokers

Point, click, trade. Is it really that easy? We bought and sold stock at eight popular online brokerages and discovered which ones were on the money.

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Undercover Traders

Posing as ordinary investors, we opened accounts with eight online brokers: market leaders Ameritrade, Charles Schwab, Datek, DLJdirect, E-Trade, and Waterhouse, as well as promising upstarts Discover Brokerage Direct and Suretrade. At each site, we tested how easy it is to open an account, place a stock trade, and get help. We pestered each firm's customer service department via e-mail and by telephone, both while the market was open and when it was closed. We also gauged the site's ease of navigation and the usefulness of its stock research tools.

We discovered that no broker has it all. Your choice will depend on what's important to you. If you need a little hand-holding, you'll want a firm that excels at customer service. If you want fast, no-nonsense stock trades, look for a broker that caters to frequent traders. And if you crave the cheapest trading, be prepared to wing it when it comes to getting answers to your questions. Check out "What Kind of Broker Is Right for You?" for our recommendations based on four different investment strategies--one of which is probably yours.

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