Deal? Or No Deal?

4. Cheap Stock Trades

Eager to take charge of your investments, you're intrigued by an ad for an online brokerage account: $4 trades! Deal?

NO DEAL! To get the low rate, you may have to make 10 or more trades a month, which will run you at least $480 a year. Worse, your investment performance is likely to suffer. Studies show that the most active traders underperform their less manic peers.

You're better off paying a more pedestrian $12 a trade and keeping your inner Jim Cramer in check. In other cases these low rates apply only to automatic investments (stocks you buy on a recurring basis). But $4 is a big commission if you're investing only a few hundred dollars per month.

Learn how you can find the best stocks in the market

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