Stock and index options are also widely but not universally offered. Rarely, but increasingly. Know what you want, and don't hesitate to divide your capital among two or more brokers to take advantage of product specialties. It's important to feel comfortable with the screen environment of your online broker. If the order page is confusing, or the research tools take forever to load, you risk being not only frustrated, but prone to making mistakes.
Most brokerages provide visitors a demo of their order, account record, and portfolio pages.
The samples are worthwhile in checking the interface design, but inconclusive as tests of the broker's performance in market conditions. You can glean a sense of the site's speed and stability by surfing it exhaustively before opening an account. Test a few Web sites, and it should become clear that some are sleeker, more streamlined, and geared to quicker performance than others. Every online broker, by definition, provides an online interface for buying and selling securities. In addition, some firms supply a touch-tone telephone interface for checking your portfolio and placing orders.