Best Stock Purchase Method?

[DutchmanAZ]

I would like to make a stock investment and would prefer to do this online vs. say a local branch of Ed Jones.
Does anyone have a recommendation on the online brokers? I plan to buy and hold for a bit, and do not yet plan to do much trading, but I don't wish to pay needless fees if I can avoid them.
TIA

 

[conraddobler]

I would like to make a stock investment and would prefer to do this online vs. say a local branch of Ed Jones.
Does anyone have a recommendation on the online brokers? I plan to buy and hold for a bit, and do not yet plan to do much trading, but I don't wish to pay needless fees if I can avoid them.
TIA

I can say I've used two.

Think or swim and Merill Lynch online.

Think or swim is great for heavy traders, execution is amazing, they used to have a fee matching system and they've been around a few years.

Merill Lynch is now owned by Bank of America, since Bank of America is probably too big to fail there is stability there I guess.

Merill has improved it's pricing and trading system since being purchased by Bank of America.

I also can get money out of my account via a debit card at any Bank of America free of fees, they offer a good cash management account that you can put money into automatically.

Hope that helps.