Basic Stock Investing 3: How do you buy stocks?

Now that you know what a stock is and a little bit about the different types of stocks you may be wondering how you can get started buying stocks. In order to buy stocks you have to set up an account with a brokerage. Brokerage accounts are very similar to your everyday bank account except they allow you to buy and sell stocks. In exchange for this capability you have to pay a fee, or commission, for each transaction made. Depending on your account provider this commission could be anywhere from $5 to $50 but for the majority of small investors $10 per trade is the most common. One discount broker that I would highly recommend is ShareBuilder.