Vanguard was founded in 1975, giving the brokerage over 30 years of investing experience. They offer the common investment vehicles including stocks, mutual funds and exchange–traded funds. In addition, you can purchase a number of fixed income investments including bonds, CDs, U.S. Treasury and Agency Issues and mortgage–backed securities—just to name a few.

Vanguard Standout Features:

• Margin and option investing for qualifying clients
• Thousands of mutual funds available for investing
• Online trading has the lowest commission fees compared to their other products

As far as investment and trading features, Vanguard offers everything the average investor will need. You can customize your trading desktop with charts and graphs, streaming news, alerts and analyst research reports.

Vanguard offers customer support through three offices nationwide, email and over the phone. Many of your questions can be answered with the online documentation and FAQs.

The downsides to Vanguard: they have a steeper commissions schedule. They charge $25 for market and limit trades and $45 + $.05/share for broker assisted trades. You have to make a minimum investment of $3,000 to open an account with Vanguard.