Hi everyone,I am considering opening a share trading account. As I expected, there are literally 100s to choose from!I know options express is one as well as interactive investor.Ideally I want to purchase UK and US shares.So my question is..."Can anyone recommend a decent share trading company which doesn't charge over the odds per trade? I've seen prices range between £4 and £15...what differences are there??""My other question is...Can you recommend any share tracking software. I understand Telechart is one option. Can you recommend any others?"Any help or advice would be gratefully received.Many thanks,James Stelfox

Look at Scottrade, e*Trade, TD Ameritrade, Sharebuilder, Trade King, Zecco. They range from $4.95 to $9.99. The differences would be what they offer you. Some may have inactivity fees (e*Trade). Some will give you so many free trades (e*Trade 100 in the first 30-days, Zecco 10 each month if you have $2,500 in the account, TD Ameritrade gives you the first 30-days of free trades with $2,000 in the account). They also have different research features, or may/may not have streaming live quotes.As for software, each broker should offer you to have your portfolio on their website. You can also setup Excel to do that.

You are right in that there a lot of differences and the price you pay reflects the quality of the company's system as well as the service they provide. If you want advice then you should expect to pay more of if you feel competent about your trading you can get away with paying very little. Ultimately the decision is yours though I can recommend Iweb for a few reasons. Personally, I need a system that works well and doesn´t crash. Also I don´t care to have advice. Iweb don´t provide a whole lot in the way of services though their internet based platform is very reliable and they only update over weekends. You only pay for the trades, there is no monthly fee which puts me off. You can also trade all Uk markets apart from the Plus Market and most leading european markets. Also, just after filling in a form, you can trade in the US as well.As for tracking software, I'm not sure. I found a free charting tool called FCharts. It is ok though personally I don´t use them that often. Reuters, the FT and various other websites serve my own purposes.Good luck.

Have a look at gnutrade.com. The site offers a more modern way to trade the financial markets by betting on price movements. This means you can benefit from rising or falling markets without going through the hassle of actually buying and selling shares. You can trade directly online using an interactive, game-like trading screen, and you don't have to go through a broker, pay any broker fees or trading taxes or get bogged down with paperwork, etc. You can sign up for a free play money account and have a go at trading the live prices, without any commitments.