Is Zecco.com a Boon or Burden for the Investor and Trader?

Zecco.com is an innovative online discount brokerage that allows users to engage in a few commission free trades every month (and low commissions thereafter, relative to the other major online brokers) and discuss their trading or investing profiles online in a social community not unlike man forums and chat rooms. Zecco.com began with a fairly shoddy web site, and early this year went through a few design overhauls, including simplifications that make the site easier to use and work with. The purpose of Zecco is to make trading securities easier for people while promoting sharing of ideas in the online community.

While I believe that the idea of Zecco is great, lowered commissions seem to come at the cost of bad customer service and poorly made web-pages. While Zecco is slowly working out the kinks, their site is far from simple when compared to the financial-brokerage giants. I personally think that social communities online are a great success, and the trading of ideas and collaboration is the wave of the future. I find that people discuss their trading ideas anyway, and the creation of online communities to do the same is an inevitable overflow that stems from the critical mass - the market for information is as large as the market for the stocks people want to trade.

My own methods for approaching trading and investments vary as the market changes direction. However, I find that in terms of market research, Zacks.com and Investors Business Daily both provide great services for almost any kind of investor. While IBD (Investors.com) provides a suite of tools to apply when investing long term, it's useful to get a profile of a company in a certain sector. Zacks is great for getting a feel for what companies an investor should choose if they have a certain profile in mind. These tools aren't great if a person can't access the basic features of a brokerage, and at some level, Zecco falls short.