Buying stocks online is a fairly straightforward process. Gone are the days of calling up your broker, unless you want to. This financial article will guide you through the process of buying stocks online.

Finding an Online Broker

The first step is to start an account with an online broker. Since you’re just starting out, focus your selection process on the larger names out there.

I recommend looking at Scottrade.com at some point in your search. They offer many nice features and $7 trades—unless the stock is under $1 per share.

As part of my continuing educational series on investing in the stock market, I will talk about the float today. The float is the number of shares held by the general public (shares outstanding). For instance, as of this writing, Google (Symbol: GOOG) had 311.5 million shares outstanding.

It’s important to know the float when buying stocks. Here are a couple things to keep in mind with higher and lower floats.

One of the best investing developments in recent years is the emergence and growth of Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs). They are opening up a whole new world for many investors.

An Exchange Traded Fund is a basket of securities, and it trades just like a single stock would. ETF’s are somewhat of a buzzword these days and there’s good reason why.

ETFs can be created to follow a broad market, an international market, an industry, or some other investing composition.

As part of my educational series on FinancialRebel.com, I felt it was important to define microcap stocks.

Microcap stocks aren’t defined well at all. Even the SEC (U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission) does a poor job at telling investors what a microcap stock actually is.

According to the SEC’s Web site, a microcap stock is for a company with “micro or low capitalization.” And if that’s not vague enough, they add that a microcap stock is usually for a company with “limited” assets.

Still confused on what constitutes a microcap stock? You’re not alone.