Five reasons you must switch to an online trading account

In the last decade, Indians have developed the habit to go to the internet to order their food, cabs, clothes, tickets and a whole spree of other services for which we previously went to brick and mortar businesses. Yet, a surprisingly large number of individual investors are yet to go online for stock trading and other forms of equity investments. To make the most out of your investments, it’s time to switch to online trading accounts. Here are some important reasons you must switch to trading virtually and open an online trading account.

Lower fee and brokerage
Owing to reduced cost of rent or manpower, online trading accounts often have low brokerage. Since they operate in a high-tech and asset-light environment, they’re able to offer services at a lesser commission. If you’re trading large volumes, you can even negotiate to further reduce your brokerage fee.

Better control with real time monitoring
Convenience and control are key factors when it comes to investing. With an online trading account, the advanced interfaces and customised views in your dashboard show you how your money is performing, even real-time, at an intra-day level. You can do all the monitoring by yourself without needing to call or mail anyone. All you need is your smartphone or a computer.

Smarter decisions with online tools
This is probably the strongest point in favour of trading online. You get to use a suit of tools like Investment Planner, Tax Planner, Return Calculator, Stock Predictor with interactive performance charts for your investment. These tools process thousands of data points to keep the forecast or the analysis as close to actual as possible.

Faster buying and selling
Prices of mid cap and small cap stocks are often volatile at intra-day levels. The spontaneity is a big factor in trading. Online trading allows instant, single-click conversion of cash to stock and vice versa. You can even set a desirable price to buy or sell a stock. It will automatically be traded once it hits that price point.

Better understanding with bigger picture
Like any other skill, stock trading can also be aced by doing more and more of it. An online trading platform provides you with so many data points, analysis, inputs, and developments that you eventually start developing a stronger understanding of wealth generation through equity investments. This is a fairly empirical process, but it leaves you with a robust understanding and better decision making, which reflects in other areas of your life, and not just monetary.

These are some of the key benefits of having your own online trading account. Drop your questions or suggestions in the comments. And of course, start trading online!