query: Trading on exchanges or via brokerage companies?

positive: "Yes when I place an order with my broker they send it out to the exchange. - For individual investors, what are some cons and pros of trading on    the exchanges directly versus indirectly via brokers? I may be mistaken(I highly doubt it), but from my understanding you cannot trade directly through an exchange as a retail investor. BATS allows membership but it is only for  Your firm must be a registered broker-dealer, registered with a Self Regulatory Organization (SRO) and connected with a clearing firm. No apple (aapl) is listed on the NASDAQ so trades go through the NASDAQ for aapl. Caterpillar Inc (CAT) is listed on the NYSE so trades go through the NYSE.  The exchange you trade on is dependent on the security, if it is listed on the NYSE then you trade on the NYSE. As a regular investor you will be going through a broker. When looking to purchase a security it is more important to know about the company and less important to know what exchange it is listed on. Since there are rules a company must comply with for it to be listed on certain exchanges, it does make a difference but that is more the case when speaking about a stock listed Over the Counter(OTC) or NYSE. It is not important when asking NYSE or NASDAQ? Selecting a broker is something that's dependent on your needs. You should ask your self, ""whats important to me?"", ""Do I want apps(IE: iPhone, android)?"" ""Do I need fancy trading tools?"". Generally all the brokers you listed will most likely do the trick for you. Some review sites: Brokerage Review  Online Broker Review 2012 Barron's 2012 Online Broker Review"

positive: I was wondering what relations are between brokerage companies and exchanges? Are brokers representing investors to trade on exchanges? Yes...but a broker may also buy and sell stocks for his own account. This is called broker-delaer firm. For individual investors, what are some cons and pros of trading on the exchanges directly versus indirectly via brokers? Doesn't the former save the investors any costs/expenses paid to the brokers? Yes, but to trade directly on an exchange, you need to register with them. That costs money and only a limited number of people can register I believe. Note that some (or all?) exchanges have their websites where I think trading can be done electronically, such as NASDAQ and BATS? Can almost all stocks be found and traded on almost every exchange? In other words, is it possible that a popular stock can only be found and traded on one exchange, but not found on the other exchange? If needed to be more specific, I am particularly interested in the U.S. case,and for example, Apple's stock. Yes, it is very much possible with smaller companies. Big companies are usually on multiple exchanges. What are your advices for choosing exchange and choosing brokerage companies? What exchanges and brokerage companies do you recommend? For brokerage companies, a beginner can go with discount broker. For sophisticated investors can opt for full service brokers. Usually your bank will have a brokerage firm. For exchanges, it depends...if you are in US, you should send to the US exchanges. IF you wish to send to other exchanges in other countries, you should check with the broker about that.

negative: You must understand that: So, if you -- the prospective buyer -- are in Waukegan, do you take the train all the way to New York City just to buy 100 shares of stock?  No.  That would be absurdly expensive.  So, you hire an agent in NYC who will broker a deal for you in the exchange. Fast forward 100 years, to the time when instant communications is available.  Why do we now still need brokerages, when the Exchanges could set up web sites and let you do the trading? The answer is that the Exchanges don't want to have to develop the accounting systems to manage the transactions of hundreds of thousands of small traders, when existing brokerage firms already have those computerized processes in place and are opening their own web sites. Thus, in 2017 we have brokerage firms because of history.

negative: Some ADRs have standardized options that trade on US exchanges.  If your stock/ADR is one of those, then you find the put option through most brokerages that deal with stock options and trade the option like you would on a regular stock.  If your ADR does not have standardized options, then your options will depend on where the ADR trades.  If it's OTC, you might not even be able to short it.  If it trades on a major exchange, the shorting the ADR may be a viable choice.

negative: I will assume that you are not asking in the context of high frequency trading, as this is Personal Finance Stack Exchange. It is completely acceptable to trade odd lots for retail brokerage customers. The odd lot description that you provided in your link, from Interactive Brokers is correct. But even in that context, it says, regarding the acceptability of odd lots to stock exchanges: The exception is that odd lots can be routed to NYSE/ARCA/AMEX, but   only as part of a basket order or as a market-on-close (MOC) order. Google GOOG is traded on the NASDAQ. Everything on the NASDAQ is electronic, and always has been. You will have no problem selling or buying less than 100 shares of Google.  There is also an issue of higher commissions with odd lots: While trading commissions for odd lots may still be higher than for   standard lots on a percentage basis, the popularity of online trading   platforms and the consequent plunge in brokerage commissions means   that it is no longer as difficult or expensive for investors to   dispose of odd lots as it used to be in the past. Notice what it says about online trading making it easier, not more difficult, to trade odd lots.

negative: This is more than likely a thing about your financial institution and the exchanges where they trade shares. Some exchanges cannot/will not handle odd lot transactions. Most established brokerages have software and accounting systems that will deal in round lots with the exchanges, but can track your shares individually. Sometimes specific stocks cannot be purchased in odd lots due to circumstances specific to that stock (trading only on a specific exchange, for example).  Most brokerages offer dollar-cost averaging programs, but may limit which stocks are eligible, due to odd lot and partial share purchases. Check with your brokerage to see if they can support odd lot and/or DCA purchases. You may find another similar ETF with similar holdings that has better trading conditions, or might consider an open-end mutual fund with similar objectives. Mutual funds allow partial share purchases (you have $100 to invest today, and they issue you 35.2 shares, for example).

negative: I stumbled on the same discrepancy, and was puzzled by a significant difference between the two prices on ETR and FRA. For example, today is Sunday, and google shows the following closing prices for DAI. FRA:DAI: ETR:DAI: So it looks like there are indeed two different exchanges trading at different prices.  Now, the important value here, is the last column (Volume). According to Wikipedia, the trading on Frankfort Stock Exchange is done today exclusively via Xetra platform, thus the volume on ETR:DAI is much more important than on FRA:DAI.  Obviously, they Wikipedia is not 100% accurate, i.e. not all trading is done electronically via Xetra. According to their web-page, Frankfort exchange has a Specialist Trading on Frankfurt Floor service which has slightly different trading hours.  I suspect what Google and Yahoo show as Frankfort exchange is this manual trading via a Specialist (opposed to Xetra electronic trading). To answer your question, the stock you're having is exactly the same, meaning if you bought an ETR:BMW you can still sell it on FRA (by calling a FRA Trading Floor Specialist which will probably cost you a fee). On the other hand, for the portfolio valuation and performance assessments you should only use ETR:BMW prices, because it is way more liquid, and thus better reflect the current market valuation.

negative: One advantage not pointed out yet is that closed-end funds typically trade on stock exchanges, whereas mutual funds do not.  This makes closed-end funds more accessible to some investors. I'm a Canadian, and this particular distinction matters to me.  With my regular brokerage account, I can buy U.S. closed-end funds that trade on a stock exchange, but I cannot buy U.S. mutual funds, at least not without the added difficulty of somehow opening a brokerage account outside of my country.

negative: "The risk of market orders depends heavily on the size of the market and the exchange. On big exchange and a security which is traded in hue numbers you're likely that there are enough participants to give you a ""fair"" price. Doing a market order on a security which is hardly dealed you might make a bad deal. In Germany Tradegate Exchange and the sister company the bank Tradegate AG are known to play a bit dirty: Their market is open longer than Frankfurt (Xetra) and has way lower liquidity. So it can happen that not all sell or buy orders can be processes on the Exchange and open orders are kept. Then Tradegate AG steps in with a new offer to full-fill these trades selling high or buying low. There is a German article going in details on wiwo.de either German or via Google Translate"

negative: While the issuer of the security such as a stock or bond not the short is responsible for the credit risk, the issuer and the short of a derivative is one. In all cases, it is more than likely that a trader is owed securities by an agent such as a broker or exchange or clearinghouse. Legally, only the Options Clearing Corporation clears openly traded options.  With stocks and bonds, brokerages can clear with each other if approved. While a trader is expected to fund margin, the legal responsibility is shared by all in the agent chain.  Clearinghouses are liable to exchanges.  Exchanges are liable to members.  Traders are liable to brokerages.  Both ways and so on. Clearinghouses are usually ultimately liable for counterparty risk to the long counterparty, and the short counterparty is ultimately liable to the clearinghouse. Clearinghouses are not responsible for the credit risk of stocks and bonds because the issuers are not short those securities on the exchange, thus no margin is required.  Credit risk for stocks and bonds is mitigated away from the clearing process.

negative: I think this is off topic, but here is a stab: So these are cashless.  It could be a way to smooth out the harsh reality of capitalism (I overproduced my product, I have more capacity than I can sell) and I can trade those good to other capitalists who similarly poorly planned production or capacity. Therefore the market for a system like is limited to businesses that do not plan well.  Business that plan production or capacity to levels they can already sell for cash do not need a private system to offload goods. Alternatives to such a system include: (I don't know how many businesses are really in this over production / over capacity state.  If my assumption that it isn't many is wrong, my answer is garbage.) This is a bartering system with a brokerage.  I think we have historically found that common currencies create more trade and economic activity because the value of the note in your pocket, which is the same type of note in my pocket, is common and understood.  Exchange rates typically slow down trade.  (There are many other reasons to have different currency or notes on a global sale, but the exchange certainly is a hurdle to clear.) This brokerage is essentially adding a new currency (in a grand metaphor).  And that new currency is only spendable on their brokerage, which is of limited use to society as a whole, assuming that society as a whole isn't a participating member of that brokerage. I can't really think of why this type of exchange is better than the current system we have now.  I wouldn't invest in this as a business, or invest in this as a person looking for opportunity.

negative: A stock exchange is a marketplace where people can bring their goods [shares] to be traded. There are certain rules. Stock Exchange does not own any shares of the companies that are trading in.  The list of who owns with stock is with the registrar of each company. The electronic shares are held by a Financial Institution [Securities Depository]. So even if the exchange itself goes down, you still hold the same shares as you had before it went down. One would now have to find ways to trade these shares ... possibly via other stock exchange. This leaves the question of inflight transactions, which again would be recorded and available. Think of it similar to eBay. What happens when eBay goes bankrupt? Nothing much, all the seller still have their goods with them. All the buyers who had purchased good before have it when them ... so the question remains on inflight goods where the buyer has paid the seller and not yet received shipments ...

negative: "Shares do not themselves carry any identity. Official shareholders are kept at the registrar.  In the UK, this may be kept up to date and publicly accessible.  In the US, it is not, but this doesn't matter because most shares are held ""in street name"". For a fully detailed history, one would need access to all exchange records, brokerage records, and any trades transacted off exchange. These records are almost totally unavailable."

negative: Where are you planning on buying this ETF?  I'm guessing it's directly through Vanguard?  If so, that's likely your first reason - the majority of brokerage accounts charge a commission per trade for ETFs (and equities) but not for mutual funds.   Another reason is that people who work in the financial industry (brokerages, mutual fund companies, etc) have to request permission for every trade before placing an order.  This applies to equities and ETFs but does not apply to mutual funds.  It's common for a request to be denied (if the brokerage has inside information due to other business lines they'll block trading, if a mutual fund company is trading the same security they'll block trading, etc) without an explanation.  This can happen for months.  For these folks it's typically easier to use mutual funds. So, if someone can open an account with Vanguard and doesn't work in the financial industry then I agree with your premise.  The Vanguard Admiral shares have a much lower expense, typically very close to their ETFs. Source:  worked for a brokerage and mutual fund company

negative: "All discount brokers offer a commission structure that is based on the average kind of order that their target audience will make. Different brokers advertise to different target audiences. They could all have a lot lower commissions than they do. The maximum commission price for the order ticket is set at $99 by the industry securities regulators. When discount brokers came along and started offering $2 - $9.99 trades, it was simply because these new companies could be competitive in a place where incumbents were overcharging. The same exists with Robinhood. The market landscape and costs have changed over the last decade with regulation NMS, and other brokerage firms never needed to update drastically because they could continue making a lot on commissions with nobody questioning it. The conclusion being that other brokers can also charge a lot less, despite their other overhead costs. Robinhood, like other brokerage firms (and anyone else trading directly with the exchanges), are paid by the exchanges for adding liquidity. Not only are many trades placed with no commission for the broker, they actually earn money for placing the trade. If Robinhood was doing you any favors, they would be paying you. But nobody questions free commissions so they don't. Robinhood, like other brokerage firms, sells your trading data to the highest bidder. This is called ""payment for order flow"", these subscribers see your order on the internet in route to the exhange, and before your order gets to the exchange, the subscriber sends a different order to the exchange so they either get filled before you do (analogous to front running, but different enough to not be illegal) or they alter the price of the thing you wanted to buy or sell so that you have to get a worse price. These subscribers have faster computers and faster internet access than other market participants, so are able to do this so quickly. They are also burning a lot of venture capital like all startups. You shouldn't place too much faith in the idea they are making [enough] money. They also have plans to earn interest off of balances in a variety of ways and offer more options at a price (like margin accounts)."

negative: I work at BATS Chi-X Europe and wanted to provide some clarity/answers to these questions. BATS Chi-X Europe is a Recognised Investment Exchange, so it is indeed a stock exchange.  Sometimes the term “equity market” could be used when explaining our business, but essentially we are a stock exchange.  As some background, BATS Chi-X Europe was formed by the acquisition of Chi-X Europe by BATS Trading in November 2011. At the time of the acquisition, each company operated as a Multilateral Trading Facility (MTF) for the trading of pan-European equities via a single trading platform. The category of MTF was introduced by MIFID (markets in Financial Instrument Directive) in 2007, which introduced competition in equities trading and allowed European stocks, to be traded on any European platform. Until 2007, many European stocks had to be traded only their local exchanges due to so-called “Concentration Rules”. Following the acquisition, BATS Chi-X Europe became the largest MTF in Europe, offering trading in more than 2,000 securities (2,700 securities by September 2013) across 15 major European markets, on a single trading platform.  In May 2013, BATS Chi-X Europe received Recognised Investment Exchange status from the UK Financial Conduct Authority, meaning that BATS Chi-X Europe has changed from an MTF status to full exchange status. In response to question 1: The equities traded on BATS Chi-X Europe are listed on stock exchanges such as the LSE but also listed on the other European Exchanges. The term “third party” equities is not particularly useful as all stock trading in Europe is generally a “second hand”  business referred to as “secondary market” trading. At the time of listing a firm issues shares; trading in these shares after the listing exercise is generally what happens in equity markets and these shares can be bought and sold on stock exchanges across Europe. Secondary market trading describes all trading on all exchanges or MTFs that takes place after the listing. In response to question 2: BATS Chi-X Europe trades over 2,700 stocks on its own trading platform. When trading on BATS Chi-X Europe, orders are executed on their own platform and will not end up of the LSE order books or platform. The fact that a stock was first listed on the LSE, does not mean that all trading in this stock happens via the LSE. However settlement process ensures that stocks end up being logged in a single depository. This means that a stock bought on BATS Chi-X Europe can be offset against the same stock sold on the LSE.  In response to question 3: As noted above, BATS Chi-X Europe received Recognised Investment Exchange (RIE) status from the UK Financial Conduct Authority in May 2013, meaning that BATS Chi-X Europe has changed from an MTF status to full stock exchange status. As an exchange / RIE, BATS Chi-X Europe is authorised to offer primary and secondary listings alongside its existing business.  According to the Federations of European Securities Exchanges (FESE), BATS Chi-X Europe has been the largest equity exchange in Europe by value traded in every month so far in 2013. In August, 24.1% of European equities trading in the 15 markets covered were traded on BATS Chi-X Europe. In July and August, the average notional value traded on BATS Chi-X Europe was around €7.2 billion per day. Hope this information is helpful.

negative: "Other than the brokerage fee you should also consider the following: Some brokerages provide extra protection against the these and as you guessed it for a fee. However, there could be a small bonus associated with your trading at scale: You are probably qualified for rebates from the exchanges for generating liquidity.  ""Fees and Credits applicable to Designated Market Makers (“DMMs”)"" https://www.nyse.com/publicdocs/nyse/markets/nyse/NYSE_Price_List.pdf All in all, I will say that it will be really hard for you to avoid paying brokerage fee and yes, even Buffet pays it."

negative: "I'm posting this because I think I can do a better job of explaining and detailing everything from start to stop. :) A ""broker"" is just someone who connect buyers and sellers - a middleman of sorts who is easy to deal with. There are many kinds of brokers; the ones you'll most commonly hear about these days are ""mortgage broker"" (for arranging home loans) and ""stockbroker"". The stockbroker helps you buy and sell stock. The stockbroker has a connection to one or more stock exchanges (e.g. Nasdaq, NYSE) and will submit your orders to them in order to fulfill it. This way Nasdaq and NYSE don't have to be in the business of managing millions of customer accounts (and submitting tax information about those accounts to the government and what-not) - they just manage relationships with brokerages, which is much easier for them. To invest in a stock, you will need to: In this day and age, most brokers that you care about will be easily accessed via the Internet, the applications will be available on the Internet, and the trading interface will be over the Internet. There may also be paper and/or telephone interfaces to the brokerage, but the Internet interface will work better. Be aware that post-IPO social media stock is risky; don't invest any money if you're not prepared for the possibility of losing every penny of it. Also, don't forget that a variety of alternative things exist that you can buy from a broker, such as an S&P 500 index fund or exchange-traded corporate bond fund; these will earn you some reward over time with significantly less risk. If you do not already have similar holdings through a retirement plan, you should consider purchasing some of these sooner or later."

negative: "First, your question contains a couple of false premises: Options in the U.S. do not trade on the NYSE, which is a stock exchange.  You must have been looking at a listing from an options exchange. There are a handful of options exchanges in the U.S., and while two of these have ""NYSE"" in the name, referring to ""NYSE"" by itself still refers to the stock exchange. Companies typically don't decide themselves whether options will trade for their stock.  The exchange and other market participants (market makers) decide whether to create a market for them. The Toronto Stock Exchange (TSX) is also a stock exchange.  It doesn't list any options.  If you want to see Canadian-listed options on equities, you're looking in the wrong place. Next, yes, RY does have listed options in Canada. Here are some.  Did you know about the Montreal Exchange (MX)?  The MX is part of the TMX Group, which owns both the Toronto Stock Exchange (TSX) and the Montreal Exchange. You'll find lots of Canadian equity and index options trading at the MX.  If you have an options trading account with a decent Canadian broker, you should have access to trade options at the MX. Finally, even considering the existence of the MX, you'll still find that a lot of Canadian companies don't have any options listed.  Simply: smaller and/or less liquid stocks don't have enough demand for options, so the options exchange & market makers don't offer any. It isn't cost-effective for them to create a market where there will be very few participants."

negative: Brokerage firms are required to report the number of shares being shorted.  This information is reported to the exchange (NYSE of NASDAQ) and is made public.  Most financial sites indicate the number of shares being shorted for a particular stock.  The image below from Yahoo finance shows 3.29 million shares of CMG were being shorted at the close of 9-28-2012.  This is over 12% of the total outstanding shares of CMG.  For naked short selling additional information is tracked.  If the brokerage is unable to borrow shares to deliver before the settlement date of a short sale then the transaction is recorded as fails-to-deliver.  No money or shares are exchanged since the brokerage is unable to deliver the shares that were agreed upon.  A large amount of fails-to-deliver transactions for a stock usually indicates an excessive amount of naked shorting.  When investors and brokerage firms start to aggressively short a stock they will do so without having borrowed the shares to sell.  This will result in a large amount of naked short selling.  When there are a large number of naked short sellers not all the sellers will be able to borrow the necessary shares before the settlement date and many fails-to-deliver transactions will be recorded. The SEC records the number of fails-to-deliver transactions. The table below summarizes the fails-to-deliver transactions from 1-1-2012 through 9-14-2012 (data obtained from here). The “Ext Amount” column shows the total dollar value of the transactions that failed ( i.e. Fail Qty * Share price ).  The “Volume” column is the total number of shares traded in the same time period.  The “% Volume” shows the percentage of shares that failed to deliver as a percentage of the total market volume. The table orders the data in descending order by the quantity of shares that were not delivered.  Most of the companies at the top of the list no longer exist.  For many of these companies, the quantity of shares that failed to deliver where many multiples of the number of shares traded during the same time period.  This indicates massive naked short selling as many brokerages where unable to find shares to borrow before the settlement date. More information here.

negative: "The Indian regulator (SEBI) has banned trading in 300 shell companies that it views as being ""Shady"", including VB Industries. According to Money Control (.com): all these shady companies have started to rally and there was a complaint to SEBI that investors are getting SMSs from various brokerage firms to invest in them This suggests evidence of ""pump and dump"" style stock promotion.  On the plus side, the SEBI will permit trading in these securities once a month : Trading in these securities shall be permitted once a month (First Monday of the month). Further, any upward price movement in these securities shall not be permitted beyond the last traded price and additional surveillance deposit of 200 percent of trade value shall be collected form the Buyers which shall be retained with Exchanges for a period of five months. This will give you an opportunity to exit your position, however, finding a buyer may be a problem and because of the severe restrictions placed on trading, any bid prices in the market are going to be a fraction of the last trade price."

negative: For eToro, just like any other brokerage firm, you can lose your entire capital. I suggest that you invest in one or more exchange-traded funds that track major indexes.  If not, just put your money in fixed deposit accounts; gain a bit of interest and establish an emergency fund first before investing money that you feel you are able to lose.

negative: Why do you care? In any case, you can easily Google the answer... Effective Sunday, April 2, 2017 for trade date Monday, April 3, 2017, and pending all relevant CFTC   regulatory review periods, Chicago Mercantile Exchange Inc. (“CME” or “Exchange”) will list Monday   Weekly Options on the E-mini Standard and Poor’s Stock Price Index Futures and Standard and Poor’s   500 Stock Price Index Futures contracts (collectively the “Contracts”) for trading on CME Globex and for   submission for clearing via CME ClearPort as described in Appendix A below. Appendix B below provides   the Exchange fee schedule for the Contracts. source

negative: I have an ESPP with E*Trade; you can transfer stock like that via a physical (paper) asset-transfer form. Look for one of those, and if you can't find it, call your brokerage (or email / whatever). You own the shares, so you can generally do what you want with them. Just be very careful about recording all the purchase and transfer information so that you can deal properly with the taxes.

negative: "Really arbitrage means that, currency risk aside, it shouldn't matter which exchange you buy on in price terms alone. Arbitrage will always make sure that the prices are equivalent otherwise high frequency traders can make free money off the difference. In practical terms liquidity and brokerage costs usually make trading on the ""home"" exchange more worthwhile as any limit orders etc will be filled at a better price as you will more easily find a counterparty to your trade. Obviously that will only be an issue where your quantity is significant enough to move the market on a given exchange. The volume needed to move a market is dependent upon the liquidity of the particular stock."

negative: I have been careful here to cover both shares in companies and in ETFs (Exchange Traded Funds). Some information such as around corporate actions and AGMs is only applicable for company shares and not ETFs. The shares that you own are registered to you through the broker that you bought them via but are verified by independent fund administrators and brokerage reconciliation processes. This means that there is independent verification that the broker has those shares and that they are ring fenced as being yours. The important point in this is that the broker cannot sell them for their own profit or otherwise use them for their own benefit, such as for collateral against margin etc..  1) Since the broker is keeping the shares for you they are still acting as an intermediary. In order to prove that you own the shares and have the right to sell them you need to transfer the registration to another broker in order to sell them through that broker. This typically, but not always, involves some kind of fee and the broker that you transfer to will need to be able to hold and deal in those shares. Not all brokers have access to all markets. 2) You can sell your shares through a different broker to the one you bought them through but you will need to transfer your ownership to the other broker and that broker will need to have access to that market. 3) You will normally, depending on your broker, get an email or other message on settlement which can be around two days after your purchase. You should also be able to see them in your online account UI before settlement. You usually don't get any messages from the issuing entity for the instrument until AGM time when you may get invited to the AGM if you hold enough stock. All other corporate actions should be handled for you by your broker. It is rare that settlement does not go through on well regulated markets, such as European, Hong Kong, Japanese, and US markets but this is more common on other markets. In particular I have seen quite a lot of trades reversed on the Istanbul market (XIST) recently. That is not to say that XIST is unsafe its just that I happen to have seen a few trades reversed recently.

negative: Where can publicly traded profits go but to shareholders via dividends? They can be retained by the company.

negative: Brokerage firms must settle funds promptly, but there's no explicit definition for this in U.S. federal law. See for example, this article on settling trades in three days. Wikipedia also has a good write-up on T+3. It is common practice, however. It takes approximately three days for the funds to be available to me, in my Canadian brokerage account. That said, the software itself prevents me from using funds which are not available, and I'm rather surprised yours does not. You want to be careful not to be labelled a pattern day trader, if that is not your intention. Others can better fill you in on the consequences of this. I believe it will not apply to you unless you are using a margin account. All but certainly, the terms of service that you agreed to with this brokerage will specify the conditions under which they can lock you out of your account, and when they can charge interest. If they are selling your stock at times you have not authorised (via explicit instruction or via a stop-loss order), you should file a complaint with the S.E.C. and with sufficient documentation. You will need to ensure your cancel-stop-loss order actually went through, though, and the stock was sold anyway. It could simply be that it takes a full business day to cancel such an order.

negative: "In essence the problem that the OP identified is not that the FX market itself has poor liquidity but that retail FX brokerage sometimes have poor counterparty risk management. The problem is the actual business model that many FX brokerages have. Most FX brokerages are themselves customers of much larger money center banks that are very well capitalized and provide ample liquidity. By liquidity I mean  the ability to put on a position of relatively decent size (long EURUSD say) at any particular time with a small price impact relative to where it is trading. For spot FX, intraday bid/ask spreads are extremely small, on the order of fractions of pips for majors (EUR/USD/GBP/JPY/CHF). Even in extremely volatile situations it rarely becomes much larger than a few pips for positions of 1 to 10 Million USD equivalent notional value in the institutional market. Given that retail traders rarely trade that large a position, the FX spot market is essentially very liquid in that respect. The problem is that there are retail brokerages whose business model is to encourage excessive trading in the hopes of capturing that spread, but not guaranteeing that it has enough capital to always meet all client obligations. What does get retail traders in trouble is that most are unaware that they are not actually trading on an exchange like with stocks. Every bid and ask they see on the screen the moment they execute a trade is done against that FX brokerage, and not some other trader in a transparent central limit order book. This has some deep implications. One is the nifty attribute that you rarely pay ""commission"" to do FX trades unlike in stock trading. Why? Because they build that cost into the quotes they give you. In sleepy markets, buyers and sellers cancel out, they just ""capture"" that spread which is the desired outcome when that business model functions well.  There are two situations where the brokerage's might lose money and capital becomes very important. In extremely volatile markets, every one of their clients may want to sell for some reason, this forces the FX brokers to accumulate a large position in the opposite side that they have to offload. They will trade in the institutional market with other brokerages to net out their positions so that they are as close to flat as possible. In the process, since bid/ask spreads in the institutional market is tighter than within their own brokerage by design, they should still make money while not taking much risk. However, if they are not fast enough, or if they do not have enough capital, the brokerage's position might move against them too quickly which may cause them lose all their capital and go belly up. The brokerage is net flat, but there are huge offsetting positions amongst its clients. In the example of the Swiss Franc revaluation in early 2015, a sudden pop of 10-20% would have effectively meant that money in client accounts that were on the wrong side of the trade could not cover those on the other side. When this happens, it is theoretically the brokerage's job to close out these positions before it wipes out the value of the client accounts, however it would have been impossible to do so since there were no prices in between the instantaneous pop in which the brokerage could have terminated their client's losing positions, and offload the risk in the institutional market. Since it's extremely hard to ask for more money than exist in the client accounts, those with strong capital positions simply ate the loss (such as Oanda), those that fared worse went belly up. The irony here is that the more leverage the brokerage gave to their clients, the less money would have been available to cover losses in such an event. Using an example to illustrate: say client A is long 1 contract at $100 and client B is short 1 contract at $100. The brokerage is thus net flat. If the brokerage had given 10:1 leverage, then there would be $10 in each client's account. Now instantaneously market moves down $10. Client A loses $10 and client B is up $10. Brokerage simply closes client A's position, gives $10 to client B. The brokerage is still long against client B however, so now it has to go into the institutional market to be short 1 contract at $90. The brokerage again is net flat, and no money actually goes in or out of the firm. Had the brokerage given 50:1 leverage however, client A only has $2 in the account. This would cause the brokerage close client A's position. The brokerage is still long against client B, but has only $2 and would have to ""eat the loss"" for $8 to honor client B's position, and if it could not do that, then it technically became insolvent since it owes more money to its clients than it has in assets. This is exactly the reason there have been regulations in the US to limit the amount of leverage FX brokerages are allowed to offer to clients, to assure the brokerage has enough capital to pay what is owed to clients."

negative: What is the best form of investment? It only depends on your goals... The perfect amount of money depends also on your particular situation. The first thing you should start getting familiar with is the notion of portfolio and diversification. Managing risk is also fundamental especially with the current market funkiness... Start looking at index based ETFs -Exchange Traded Funds- and Balanced Mutual Funds to begin with. Many discounted online brokerage companies in the USA offer good training and knowledge centers. Some of them will also let you practice with a demo account that let you invest virtual money to make you feel comfortable with the interface and also with investing in general.

negative: "For a non-ETF mutual fund, you can only buy shares of the mutual fund from the mutual fund itself (at a price that the mutual fund will reveal only at the end of the day) and can only shares back to the mutual fund (again at a price that the mutual fund will reveal only at the end of the day). There is no open market in the sense that you cannot put in a bid to buy, say, 100 shares of VFINX at $217 per share through a brokerage, and if there is a seller willing to sell 100 shares of VFINX to you at $217, then the sale is consummated and you are now the proud owner of 100 shares of VFINX. The only buyer or seller of VFINX is the mutual find itself, and you tell it that you ""want to buy 100 shares of VFINX and please take the money out of my checking account"". If this order is entered before the markets close at 4 pm, the mutual fund determines its share price as of the end of the day, opens a new account for you and puts 100 shares of VFINX in it (or adds 100 shares of VFINX to your already existing pile of shares) and takes the purchase price out of your checking account via an ACH transfer. Similarly for redeeming/selling shares of VFINX that you own (and these are held in an account at the mutual fund itself, not by your brokerage): you tell the mutual fund to that you ""wish to redeem 100 shares and please send the proceeds to my bank account"" and the mutual fund does this at the end of the day, and the money appears in your bank account via ACH transfer two or three days later.  Generally, these transactions do not need to be for round lots of multiples of 100 shares for efficiency; most mutual fund will gladly sell you fractional shares down to a thousandth of a share. In contrast, shares of an exchange-traded fund (ETF) are just like stock shares in that they can be bought and sold on the open market and your broker will charge you fees for buying and selling them. Selling fractional shares on the open market is generally not possible, and trading in round lots is less expensive. Also, trades occur at all times of the stock exchange day, not just at the end of the day as with non-ETF funds, and the price can fluctuate during the day too. Many non-ETF mutual funds have an ETF equivalent: VOO is the symbol for Vanguard's S&P 500 Index ETF while VFINX is the non-ETF version of the same index fund.  Read more about the differences between ETFs and mutual funds, for example, here."

negative: In the UK, this is the very definition of a Public Limited Company.    A Limited Company can restrict how its stock is trades and who can buy and sell and when, a Public Limited Company cannot. Most stock exchanges will only allow Public Limited Company stock to be traded. Therefore a company can control who its stock holders are or be traded on a Stock Exchange.

negative: "Regarding ""Interest on idle cash"",  brokerage firms must maintain a segregated account on the brokerage firm's books to make sure that the client's money and the firm's money is not intermingled, and clients funds are not used for operational purposes. Source.   Thus, brokerage firms do not earn interest on cash that is held unused in client accounts. Regarding ""Exchanges pay firm for liquidity"", I am not aware of any circumstances under which an exchange will pay a brokerage any such fee.  In fact, the opposite is the case.  Exchanges charge participants to transact business. See : How the NYSE makes money Similarly, market makers do not pay a broker to transact business on their behalf.  They charge the broker a commission just like the broker charges their client a commission.  Of course, a large broker may also be acting as market maker or deal directly with the exchange, in which case no such commission will be incurred by the broker.  In any case, the broker will pay a commission to the clearing house."

negative: If a company's shares trade in multiple exchanges, the prices in every exchange are very near to each other, otherwise you could earn money by doing arbitrage deals (buying in one, selling in the other) - and people do that once it becomes worth it. Which stock exchange you use is more a convenience for the buyer/seller - many investment banks offer only something local/near, and you have to go to specific investment banks to use other exchanges. For example, in Germany, it is easy to deal in Frankfurt, but if you want to trade at the the NASDAQ, you have to run around and find a bank that offers it, and you probably have to pay extra for it. In the USA, most investment banks offer NASDAQ, but if you want to trade in Frankfurt, you will have run around for an international company that offers that. As a stock owner/buyer, you can sell/buy your shares on any stock exchange where the company is listed (again, assuming your investment broker supports it). So you can buy in Frankfurt and sell in Tokyo seconds later, as nothing needs to be physically moved. Companies that are listed in multiple stock exchangs are typically large, and offer this to make trading their shares easier for a larger part of the world. Considering your 'theoretical buy all shares' - the shares are not located in the exchanges, they are in the hands of the owners, and not all are for sale, for various reasons. The owners decide if and when they want them offered for sale, and they also decide which stock exchange they offer them on; so you would need to go to all exchanges to buy them all. However, if you raise your offer price in one exchange only slightly, someone will see the arbitrage and buy them in the other locations and offer them to you in your stock exchange; in other words, for a small fee the shares will come to you. But again, most shares are typically not for sale. It's the same as trying to buy all Chevy Tahoes - even if you had the money, most owners wouldn't know or care about you. You would have to go around and contact every single one and convince them to sell.


query: I have around 60K $. Thinking about investing in Oil, how to proceed?

positive: One possibility would be to invest in a crude oil ETF (or maybe technically they're an ETP), which should be easily accessible through any stock trading platform.  In theory, the value of these investments is directly tied to the oil price.  There's a list of such ETFs and some comments here.  But see also here about some of the problems with such things in practice, and some other products aiming to avoid those issues.  Personally I find the idea of putting all my savings into such a vehicle absolutely horrifying; I wouldn't contemplate having more than a small percentage of a much more well diversified portfolio invested in something like that myself, and IMHO it's a completely unsuitable investment for a novice investor.  I strongly suggest you read up on topics like portfolio construction and asset allocation (nice introductory article here and here, although maybe UK oriented; US SEC has some dry info here) before proceeding further and putting your savings at risk.

positive: "This is only a partial answer to your question #1. If you have a conservative approach to savings (and, actually, even if you don't), you should not invest all of your money in any single industry or product.  If you want to invest some money in oil, okay, but don't overdo it. If your larger goal is to invest the money in a manner that is less risky but still more lucrative than a savings account, you should read up on personal finance and investing to get a sense of what options are available.  A commonly-recommended option is to invest in low-cost index funds that mirror the performance of the stock market as a whole.  The question of ""how should I invest"" is very broad, but you can find lots of starting points in other questions on this site, by googling, or by visiting your local library."

positive: If you've decided to ignore the sound advice re: oil company stocks, and you want something directly linked to the price of oil, do the following: Understand that oil producers would like avoid the risk of a price drop, and oil consumers (refiners, electric utilities, etc.) would like to avoid the risk of a price rise. Understand that you are about to assume their risk.

positive: Royalty trusts track oil prices (they're a pure play on ownership of a portfolio of mineral rights and do not otherwise have the operations that the oil companies themselves have).  Many publicly traded ones listed at the embedded wikipedia link.   Oil tankers are having a bang up business right now as described in the article, but that's because of the low prices and flood of product from the middle east.  The article notes that inventories are near capacity, so terminals and pipelines may be in for a few good years, though these do not directly track oil price.  However, as a way to bet on oil or oil services, many terminals and pipelines are organized as publicly traded master limited partnerships or MLPs, often spun out of a major oil company for tax reasons, allowing fine-grained investment in specific assets.

negative: "If you are hard-working Japanese or German, it takes less than 10 years. This is with little investment from outside.  Actually, think about it this way: before the devastation, Japan and Germany were thriving economies to begin with.  In comparison, no matter how much money you throw at Afghanistan, Iraq, or ""Palestinians"", they will not have proper infrastructure and economy, before and after the devastation, DESPITE no need for outside investment because they have plenty of oil and minerals to sell."

negative: "You're ""onto"" something. Investing in real estate was not a bad idea about 10-15 years ago, when stocks were high, and real estate was not. On the other hand, by about 2006, BOTH stocks and real estate were high, and should have been avoided. And around 1980, both were LOW, and should have been bought. I expand this construct to include gold and oil. Around 2005, these were relatively low, and should have been bought over stocks and real estate. On the other hand, ALL FOUR are high right now, and offer comparable dangers."

negative: "I think all transportation uses only 1/3 of oil produced at best.  That includes many things that won't be electrifed soon, like planes and ships.  Don't forget how much oil agriculture uses in both fertilizer, pesticides and the least in running the equipment itself.  So while demand may soften over time, it's not like will suddenly glut.  Peak Oil (which we reached with ""conventional oil"" vs fracked) kinda says that each subsequent barrel will get more and more expensive to pump out (rather the popular perception we will suddenly run out).  That basically has been a truism since over a century, because ERoEI on oil has declined.  At peak return, iirc in the 1930s or so, we were getting something like 300 barrels of oil out for every barrel of energy invested on some fields in Saudi Arabia, now the overall average is down to around 10 or less?  Point is, oil won't go to $10.  Oil industry could not survive on it and they know we don't have alternatives for many oil uses (it's the most easily portable liquid with the highest energy concentration), so why price it as such?  If people really wanted to reduce their carbon/oil footprint, they'd stop pining for electric cars and switch to a plantbased diet - which will have a far greater impact for much less investment.  On top of all the health benefits they accumulate."

negative: The Russian ETFs may be broad, but a quick glance at ERUS and RBL's sector breakdown shows they're 45% and 47% energy sector, and their top holding is Gazprom comprising 9% and 14% of each ETF respectively, with plenty more oil and gas companies in their top 10 too.  A harder question would be how to invest in Russia and avoid oil I think (and even then, the economy is thoroughly bound up in it). To rework a meme... In Soviet Russia, oil invest YOU!

negative: Think about it. IF you save $15K by buying a Honda or a Mazda, you can invest those money at modest 5% average, you'll have over 60K before you retire, which allows you to retire at least a year earlier.... So it is worth working an extra year in your life to have a fancier car? And that's a conservative investment.

negative: "Option 1 is out. There are no ""safe returns"" that make much money. Besides, if a correction does come along how will you know when to invest? There is no signal that says when the bottom is reached, and you emotions could keep you from acting. Option 2 (dollar cost averaging) is prudent and comforting. There are always some bargains about. You could start with an energy ETF or a few ""big oil"" company stocks right now."

negative: I would focus first on maxing out your RRSPs (or 401k) each year, and once you've done that, try to put another 10% of your income away into unregistered long term growth savings. Let's say you're 30 and you've been doing that since you graduated 7 years ago, and maybe you averaged 8% p.a. return and an average of $50k per year salary (as a round number).  I would say you should have 60k to 120k in straight up investments around age 30.  If that's the case, you're probably well on your way to a very comfortable retirement.

negative: The Oil futures are exactly that.  They are people forecasting the price of oil at a point of time in the future where they are willing to buy oil at that price. That said, Do you have evidence of a correlation of Price of oil to the shares of oil stocks?  Oil companies that are good investments are generally good investments regardless of the cost of oil.  If you did not know about oil futures then you might be best served by consulting an investment professional for some guidance.

negative: First, I would want cash around the time I made the move.  I would like enough for a 20% down payment, moving expenses, and enough for 6 months of mortgage payments on the existing house.  This way if the house does not sell quickly, you are safe.  As you approach the time it comes to move, you can work backwards on how much time you would need to accumulate that kind of money. Second, this does not have to be an all or nothing kind of thing.  Perhaps you use some of the proceeds to beef up your retirement, some to pay down the mortgage, and some for savings.  You could be very wrong about the market, even so it is a wonderful opportunity to add to your nest egg at such a young age.  My own self prefers to do things in ratios.  In your case I might do 10% of the proceeds in for retirement, 10% for savings, and 80% for mortgage reduction.  (You may want to also add some charitable giving.)   I really like paying down the mortgage.  Not only is it a risk less investment, it reduces your personal risk.

negative: FTA: “Yet this new study notes that subsidies aren’t simply cash being handed to oil companies. Subsidies often come in the form of tax breaks, which is just one of the many ways oil companies receive government handouts.”  Tax breaks are not subsidies.  The taxpayer pay absolutely nothing to the oil companies when a tax break is applied.  The taxpayers are actually net recipients from the drilling activity.  If the existence of a tax break is a requirement for oil drilling profitability, then elimination of the tax break would eliminate drilling.  The taxpayers are choosing between zero additional tax revenue without tax breaks or some tax revenue with tax breaks so drilling can proceed.  The article’s point about export ports being subsidized by the taxpayer is a distraction.  The VAST majority of oil produced in the US is consumed in the US.  All that oil is drilled, transported, refined, transported again, then sold to consumers in an end-to-end supply chain built on a vast sum of private capital.

negative: that's just not possible. 27% of all US scientists are immigrants and so are 48% of all engineers.  America does not produce enough high educated/skilled workers.   MS build, or planned on building, a research facility around 5 years ago. They said they can't get enough professors and doctors with adequate education to fill the 9,000 positions. so they asked the INS how to proceed. the INS told them to fill H1b visa applications. that is only once a year and they might get, statistically, only 2000-3000 out of it of they're lucky because most will be rejected or just not get picked (it's a lottery).   MS asked Canada, Canada said do whatever, more taxes for us. MS built it in Ontario I think.  at the same time Google wrote that angry blog post in their corporate blog about how shitty the H1b situation is.

negative: "There is no simple answer to that, because no one knows exactly what the probability distribution of S&P 500 returns is. Here is a sketch of one possible way to proceed. Don't forget step 4!  The problem is that the stock market is full of surprises, so this kind of ""backtesting"" can only reliably tell you about what already happened, not what will happen in the future.  People argue about how much you can learn from this kind of analysis.  However, it is at the least a clearly defined and objective process.  I wouldn't advise investing your whole nest egg in anything based just on this, but I do think that it is relevant information."

negative: Sell half. If it's as volatile as you say, sell it all and buy on another dip. No one can really offer targeted advice based on the amount of information you have provided.

negative: "Not specifically a ""stream"", but there are royalty companies that operate based on a similar concept. With a royalty, a party will pay upfront to a another party, usually a product manufacturer, oil & gas producer, or miner, and in return they will receive a percentage of the proceeds from the sale of the goods.  For example, Company A owns 100 sections of land which carry mineral rights and they would like to drill on the land to produce oil & gas. However, Company A does not have the capital to produce the resource. Company B, a royalty company, agrees to provide upfront capital to Company A in return for a royalty, sometimes fixed, sometimes sliding scale based on other factors. The royalty is calculated based on a percentage of the sales proceeds that Company A receives from the sale of their oil & gas production.  In this way, royalty companies act similarly to streaming companies, where they provide upfront capital and in return receive a cash flow stream that is dependant on another party's actions. What is different is that the selling price is not fixed. Instead, it is the % of proceeds that is fixed, at least in the short term.  In Canada, PrairieSky Royalty and Freehold Royalties do exactly this."

negative: You've never heard of Halliburton?  Granted that was Cheney.  Cheney received received $398,548 in deferred compensation from Halliburton while Vice President.  Don't remember him going to jail.  And let's not forget the Bush's.  They had numerous investments in oil companies.  What's the best way to drive up oil prices?  War in the Middle East of course.  Vice President/President Gerald Ford also was criticized for his investments.  This nothing new.  Presidents are allowed to continue to operate their businesses.  And I can't think of a single one that was ever punished for doing that.  Honestly what I like about Trump compared with other Republicans is the fact he has no interest in war.   He has absolutely nothing to gain from war.  And every interest in peace.  War would probably hurt his businesses.  Look at the cease fire in Syria.  Look at how he ended a CIA program arming Syrian rebels.  That very different from what was happening under Obama and Clinton at the State Department.

negative: Don't sit on it, because the money does not work for you. Add more money to it and buy a stock or stocks of the company.

negative: "It is such a touchy subject for many people, I have to say that simple ""set it and forget it"" kind of investing isn't likely in the near term. Instead, if this is something you believe in, treat it like any other business opportunity and do some detailed research into people operating in the field.  Look into their business plans and visit their operations.  If there is a plan, and idea, a team and the intangible it you might consider doing some direct investing with a local company. Basically become a small business owner, silent partner or investor.  If you believe in it go for it.  If you don't believe in it that much, I think this is a market somebody else needs to develop before we invest."

negative: [Here's](http://www.macrotrends.net/1369/crude-oil-price-history-chart) what I found. I think the gist of it is that because we've invested so heavily in pumping domestic oil in North America, it's lowering worldwide demand. Countries that rely really heavily on oil revenues, like Russia, Venezuela, Libya, Saudi etc., suffer when oil prices drop.

negative: The President talked about how companies on public lands were not acquiring the oil they were leasing it for at last nights debate. I think it's worth looking into whether the same should be done with idle patents. If you're not using it you lose it.

negative: This is a very open ended question with no concrete answer as it depends on your personal situation. However, for starters I would suggest picking up a copy of The Investment Answer. It's a very light read, less than 100 pages, but it has some amazingly simple yet very concrete advice on investing and answers a lot of common questions (like yours).

negative: So far we have a case for yes and no.  I believe the correct answer is... maybe. You mention that most of your expenses are in dollars which is definitely correct, but there is an important complication that I will try to simplify greatly here.  Many of the goods you buy are priced on the international market (a good example is oil) or are made from combinations of these goods.  When the dollar is strong the price of oil is low but when the dollar is weak the price of oil is high. However, when you buy stuff like services (think a back massage) then you pay the person in dollars and the person you are paying just wants dollars so the strength of the dollar doesn't really matter. Most people's expenses are a mix of things that are priced internationally and locally with a bias toward local expenses.  If they also have a mix of investments some of which are international and depend on the strength of the dollar and some are domestic and do not, then they don't have to worry much about the strength/weakness of the dollar later when they sell their investments and buy what they want.  If the dollar is weak than the international goods will be more expensive, but at the same time international part of their portfolio will be worth more. If you plan on retiring in a different country or have 100% of your investments in emerging market stocks than it is worth thinking about either currency hedging or changing your investment mix.  However, for many people a good mix of domestic and international investments covers much of the risk that their currency will weaken while offering the benefits of diversification.  The best part is you don't need to guess if the dollar will get stronger or weaker. tl;dr: If you want your portfolio to not depend on currency moves then hedge.  If you want your retirement to not depend on currency moves then have a good mix of local and unhedged international investments.

negative: When you say: I am 48 and my husband is 54. We have approx. 60,000.00 left in our retirement accounts. We want to move our money into something so our money will grow. We've   been looking at annunities. We've talked to 4 different advisors about   what is best for us. Bad mistake, I am so overwhelmed with the   differences they all have til I can't even think straight anymore. @Havoc P is correct: ...It's very likely that 60k is not nearly enough, and that making the right investment choices will make only a small difference. You could   invest poorly and maybe end up with 50K when you retire, or invest   well and maybe end up with 80-90k. But your goal is probably more like   a million dollars, or more, and most of that will come from future   savings. This is what a planner can help you figure out in detail. TL; DR Here is my advice:

negative: As long as we're just making up formulas, I may as well just throw some numbers at it.  The position at the forensic accounting firm would be paying 50-60K likely starting salary with maybe 5K bonus if he is super busy and busts his ass.  Whereas a position in Banking would be paying about 75K base, with around 40-60K in bonus (let's assume this is a boutique or mid level bank).  So after year one, he makes about $60K more on the banking route after year 1 post graduation, whereas he forfeited 10K in summer salary plus the 5K loan with interest (which ohbytheway is tax deductible).  Pretty sure that it works out in his favor that way, and that's just after 1 year.  Yes I understand this simplifies things and assumes that he gets a job in banking solely due to the internship, and couldn't have gotten it otherwise.  However, if the internship significantly increases the likelihood (P as you put it) from .3 to .7 it's still wildly in his favor to do it, given that the wage gap will only grow over time consider his base will be 85k+bonus in yr 2, and 95K+bonus in yr 3, whereas he's looking at maybe 10% raises in the forensic accounting.    Look, you can make up formulas all you want, all I was saying is that in certain industries, it's absolutely legitimate to have unpaid internships.  In this case, $PAYOFF is a fairly high value, and P is increased a significant amount.

negative: $10k isn't really enough to make enough money to offset the extremely high risks in investing in options in this area. Taking risks is great, but a sure losing proposition isn't a risk -- it's a gamble. You're likely to get wiped out with leveraged options, since you don't have enough money to hedge your bets. Timing is critical... look at the swings in valuation in the stock market between the Bear Sterns and Lehman collapses in 2009. If you were highly leveraged in QQQQ that you bought in June 2009, you would have $0 in November. With $10k, I'd diversify into a mixture of foreign cash (maybe ETFs like FXF, FXC, FXY), emerging markets equities and commodities. Your goal should be to preserve investment value until buying opportunities for depressed assets come around.  Higher interest rates that come with inflation will be devastating to the US economy, so if I'm betting on high inflation, I want to wait for a 2009-like buying opportunity. Then you buy depressed non-cyclical equities with easy to predict cash flows like utilities (ConEd), food manufacturers (General Mills), consumer non-durables (P&G) and alcohol/tobacco. If they look solvent, buying commodity ETFs like the new Copper ETFs or interests in physical commodities like copper, timber, oil or other raw materials with intrinsic value are good too.  I personally don't like gold for this purpose because it doesn't have alot of industrial utility. Silver is a little better, but copper and oil are things with high intrinsic value that are always needed. As far as leverage goes, proceed with caution. What happens when you get high inflation? High cost of capital.

negative: Here is some good advice, read your UCO prospectus.  It seems to hold 20% of it's value ($600MM out of $3B) via 13800 of the Apr 21st 2015 contracts.  (expiring in 30 days)   Those will be rolled very quickly into the May contracts at a significant loss of NAV. (based on current oil futures chains)   Meaning if crude oil stays exactly the same price, you'd still lose 1% (5% spread loss * .20% the percentage of NAV based off futures contracts) on the roll each month.   Their other $2.4Billion is held in swaptions or cash, unsure how to rate that exposure.  All I know is those 13,800 contracts are in contango danger during roll week for the next few months (IMO).  I wonder if there is a website that tracks inflows and outflows to see if they match up with before and after the roll periods. http://www.proshares.com/funds/uco_daily_holdings.html How Oil ETFs Work Many oil ETFs invest in oil futures contracts. An oil futures contract is a commitment to buy a given amount of crude oil at a given price on a particular date in the future. Since the purpose of oil ETFs is only to serve as an investment vehicle to track the price of oil, the creators of the fund have no interest in stockpiling actual oil. Therefore, oil ETFs such as USO periodically “roll over” their futures contracts by selling the contracts that are approaching expiration and buying contracts that expire farther into the future. The Contango Problem While this process of continually rolling over futures contracts may seem like a great way to track the price of crude oil, there’s a practical problem with the method: contango. The rollover method would work perfectly if oil funds could sell their expiring contracts for the exact same price that they pay for the futures contracts they buy each month. However, in reality, it’s often true that oil futures contracts get more expensive the farther their expiration date is in the future. That means that every time the oil ETFs roll over their contracts, they lose the difference in value between the contracts they sell and the contracts they buy. That’s why funds like USO, which invests only in WTI light, sweet crude oil futures contracts, don’t directly track the performance of the WTI crude oil spot price. http://www.etftrends.com/2015/01/positioning-for-an-oil-etf-rebound-watch-for-contango/ Due to these reasons, I'd deem UCO for swing trading, not for 'investing' (buy-and-hold).  Maybe later I'll remember why one shouldn't buy and hold leveraged vehicles (leverage slippage/decay).    Do you have an exit price in mind ? or are you buy and hold ?

negative: "Uncertainty has very far reaching effects.   Oil is up ~100% since February and down ~40% from it's 52 week high (and down even more on a longer timeline).  It's not exactly a stable investment vehicle and moves a few percent each day on basically nothing.  A lot of securities will be bouncing around for the next couple weeks at least while folks remain uncertain about what the ""brexit"" will actually mean."

negative: It will be interesting to see how gas station employment is affected by oil demand and EV sales.  Bloomberg thinks EV adoption will crash oil prices by 2023.  https://www.bloomberg.com/features/2016-ev-oil-crisis/  That won't create a huge change in station employment, but will affect oil company profitability.

negative: Considered a down payment on a house? Some illiquid assets?  Otherwise you are doing 'responsible' get rich slow (read: get rich old) type things. And this question only invites opinion based answer. You tried futures and don't want to take that kind of risk again with your $50,000, so thats that

negative: This article addresses a man who specifically lost his skilled work to outsourcing to India. No one is talking about dishwashing level work here, that's more relevant to ILLEGAL immigration, and the practice of hiring illegal labor off the books by businesses.  Jobs that people don't want should pay more. That' supply and demand, the free market.  Janitors makes $15-30/ hr, more than easier low wage jobs. Maids make $25-60/hr. Garbage men make $20-60/hr.  Illegal people do it for less because they don't have full rights as citizens, and thus have less leverage to negotiate pay. Their pervasiveness gives legal citizens less leverage to negotiate their pay. I think the honest solution to illegal immigration is to seek ways to make legal immigration and naturalization more reasonably accessible while also cracking down on illegal hiring practices.  I DONT think the solution is to reserve our less desirable work to a slave class of any sort. I'm not for unions, but the negotiating power and well being of the American labor force should be protected always.  If the pay reflects the labor, people will do the work. Blue collar Americans do all sorts of disgusting, difficult, and/or dangerous work as long as it is at a premium.  This article is more about the negotiating power of americans lost to corporations taking skilled work and outsourcing it ~~at minimum wage levels of employment~~ (article said $60k or more) to those desperate for a living wage and/or citizenship. How to address that, I don't know.   Edit:not min wage, $60k

negative: "This may sound very ""tongue in cheek"", but the best thing you can invest in is to raise your income in order to increase your retirement savings.  How much are you able to contribute to retirement now?  I think you would be lucky to do $150/month and most months probably less than that.  However, if you were making like 60k/year, and allowed a little lifestyle bloat, you could probably easy put away 20k/year.  Once you are able to do that the savings you can manage now will be quickly eclipsed.   Often times when people consider ""having their money work for them"" they often neglect to factor risk.  Prior to investing one should have a proper emergency fund in place.  That is 6 months or so of living expenses in a nice safe savings account.  Those earn about 1.25% these days, which is pretty meager, but it does earn something.   Once the emergency fund is in place, one can invest with impunity.  Without it, you will have to liquidate investments if economic calamity strikes you.  This could be done at a loss furthering the harm done by the calamity.   Increase your income and create an emergency fund.  Do those things first."

negative: You could open up CDs or try a few stocks. Once I saved up enough to where I was comfortable in savings and in a retirement account, I went to CDs. Once I was comfortable with CDs I started doing stocks with dividends. Now that I'm happy with what I am receiving in dividends I just recently bought a risky stock.   I highly recommend Navy Federal for CDs, if you are eligible and USAA for stocks.   Congrats!

negative: "I'm just wondering how you would go from buying a 60k car knowing that it had a software limited battery to ""I'd be pissed"" when that is activated for you for free during a hurricane evacuation. Now obviously you wouldn't buy a Tesla in the first place, and I have no problem with you generally disliking them, but if you did, you probably wouldn't be pissed because you already knew about it."