Merrill Lynch is known for providing personalized, first–class service to high net worth individuals and their online stock trading service is without exception. To provide superb service, Merrill Lynch has more than 600 offices nationwide. They also offer phone and email support. Their staff is friendly, helpful and ready to assist your every need.

This kind of service comes with a price. Market and limit trades are $29.95 and broker assisted trades are between $50 and $150. If you want to open an account with Merrill Lynch, the minimum initial investment is $2000.

Merrill Lynch offers a number of practical tools that will accommodate your investing needs and trading strategies. They have alerts, quotes and charts and graphs. All of the tools can be integrated into a customizable desktop.

Educational and information resources include streaming news, newsletters, analyst reports and podcasts of seminars.

Merrill Lynch is a brilliant firm; however, they cater more to clients who want to sit down with an agent, set up an account and then let a broker manage it. This is for someone who has a high net worth and doesn’t want to spend the time managing and trading stocks.