Which broker does TradeWiser.com recommend for you? With so many financial organizations picking different brokers as number one, how can you really tell which one is best? Your individual trading style will determine which broker is best for you. While we continually urge traders to limit their trading strategies to two or at the most three strategies, we find that many successful traders use two or three, some even four or five brokers.

Don't limit yourself to only one broker. Some brokers focus on different segments of trading. For example, some brokers don't offer option trading, others don't offer the Level II Quotes that daytraders require. Some full-time daytraders like to have multiple accounts set up just as a safeguard in case their favorite broker experiences trouble of some sort.

There are several things you will want to consider when you choose a broker. Some otherwise excellent brokers do not have competitive margin rates. Compare rates! A few brokers have hidden fees: Read the fine print -- there are plenty of places they can tack on miscellaneous fees to drive up the overall cost. Most brokers will pay you interest on the money in your account when you don't hold any positions and some will even sweep your funds into a money market to get you a better rate.

Some brokers allow you to write checks on your account. Traders who trade short positions will want a large enough broker that they will have shares to lend for short positions. For daytraders, execution speeds are key and Datek promises to not charge you if your market order takes longer than 60 seconds.

At one time most of the brokerages that offered IRA accounts charged an annual fee of $50 or more, to deal with the regulatory hassles of holding your IRA assets. Today, more and more of them are offering IRA accounts with no setup fees, and no annual maintenance fees. We at TradeWiser.com believe strongly that IRA accounts will become a large portion of the online trading scene. Remember, with IRA accounts, securities exchange regulations prohibit margin trading, shorting, and the trading of options.

The most important difference between online brokers is the way the buy and sell orders are actually routed for execution. Many of the largest online brokers still route their customer order flow to a third party, who then pays them for the right to trade the orders. If a third party is willing to pay for the right to execute a customer's order, it's because they feel certain there is money to be made. Bottom line, the customer may not be receiving the best possible execution.

For traders who only swingtrade, how your order is routed may not always be a significant factor. But for daytraders, any time delay is critical. Simply put, daytraders who use a brokerage with poor order executions are at a terrible disadvantage. Such traders line the pockets of more savvy traders until the traders learn better or grow weary of losing money and stop trading altogether.

With the speeding growth rate of online trading, some traders may occasionally experience busy servers when trying to log on to their broker's website. Busy servers, (if you encounter them at all), are usually confined to the first 30 minutes of the market day and the last 30 minutes of the market day. As online trading matures we believe that busy servers will become a thing of the past.

Given the large number of traders that are trading online, you can find traders with any brokerage that are unhappy and have concerns about poor service. As with any human endeavor, there is always the possibility of error. If you or your brokerage should make a mistake, you will find most brokerages have a courteous, professional support staff. They will answer your questions and will help you any way they can.

For international investors seeking to trade the U. S. Stock Markets, most major online stock brokers now welcome foreign accounts. The only countries where most online brokers are still unable to service accounts are Cuba, North Korea, Iran, Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan, Sudan, Serbia, and Yugoslavia. This list can change overnight and a quick email to the broker of your choice will provide you with a update.

We have divided our broker listings into a section for swingtraders and one for daytraders. A few brokers are suitable for both daytrading and swingtrading. We have not tried to list all online stockbrokers. We list most of the larger, well known brokers and we list the ones we recommend. You can compare services, fees, and margin rates and choose the best broker for your individual trading style. (Example: If you were choosing a broker for a IRA account, the margin rate wouldn't matter since you couldn't trade on margin on that account.)