5. Scope of the product range
Product range
Which investment products would you like to trade? In addition to stocks, funds and fund savings plans, ETFs, certificates and warrants, savvy investors sometimes want too highly speculative products trade like CFDs, futures and options. Professionals who do not want to do without these speculative securities should check in advance whether and, if so, under what conditions they can be traded.
Trading venues
The range of trading venues also differs from broker to broker. Securities orders in the over-the-counter direct trading settled. This is convenient because a purchase or sale is usually confirmed online immediately and there are no stock exchange or broker fees. Therefore, check which issuers and fund companies are available for OTC trading.
The offer also differs foreign trading venues from broker to broker. Most securities can be traded more cheaply on German trading venues. Smaller foreign stocks can often only be reasonably traded on their home exchanges because they are not listed in Germany or the sales in Germany are simply so low that trading is not possible. Interested investors should therefore check whether it is possible to trade on major US stock exchanges such as the NYSE, NASDAQ and AMEX or also to trade on Europe’s highest-turnover exchange, the London Stock Exchange.
Order types and trade additions
You should always trade with limits on the stock exchange. This ensures that you do not pay an excessive price when you buy and that you do not get a price that is too bad for your shares when you sell. When opening a securities account, make sure that your broker does not charge any additional fees for issuing or canceling a limit. Experienced investors also want their brokers to offer more complex order types, for example trailing stops, where the buy or sell limit is dynamically adjusted when the security moves in the desired direction. At Forex-news.com-broker.net you will find an overview of how important order types work.