#723 - Can I Buy Stocks Online Without A Broker?

The "Daily Call" From Option Alpha

Hey everyone. This is Kirk here again from Option Alpha and welcome back to the daily call. Today, we’re going to answer the question, “Can I buy stocks online without a broker?” The simple answer to this is yes, you can, but I don’t necessarily think it’s the best thing to do. You can use programs, what are called DSPPs which are direct stock purchase plans. A lot of companies actually give you the ability to sign up to purchase stock directly from the company or through your employer. You can sign up and purchase stock directly from your employer, but I don’t think that they’re necessarily the best way to go. One, because it really is very limiting. You go through all this hassle to sign up and purchase stock directly, but then if you need to sell or you need to go through the process of selling, who’s to say that they’re going to be liquid enough to sell back those shares immediately or at effective prices as the regular market?

And then two, many places that do have a direct stock purchase plan or give you the ability to reinvest dividends through a [Inaudible] program, stuff like that probably has some sort of service fee or convenience fee that they might charge you and it could be just as little as $5 or $2, but that is really just the commission to end up using the program and using the system. I think you’re better off these days using a free broker. There’s a couple of them out there now. Robinhood is obviously this biggest one. It gives you the ability to truly start free and to buy stock in whatever company you want for free. Do you have to use a broken in that case? Yeah. You’d use Robinhood as a broker, but it gives you the ability to do everything for free. Hopefully this helps out. As always, if you have any questions, let me know and until next time, happy trading.