The "daily Call" From Option Alpha: Options Trading | Stock Options | Stock Trading | Trading Online

Hey everyone. This is Kirk here again from Option Alpha and welcome back to the daily call. Today, we’re going to answer the question, “Do you need a lot of money to invest in stocks?” The short answer to this is yes, you do, relative to something like options trading. Now, you don’t need a lot of money to buy any particular stock in and of itself, but if you don’t have a lot of money to start with and you have a smaller account, many brokerages defines smaller accounts as accounts under $10,000 or $25,000, then it requires a lot of your capital as a percentage of your account to invest in a couple of shares or a handful of shares in popular stocks or ETFs or indexes. For example, Apple stock right now is trading at $260. The S&P 500 is trading at over $300. Those are really capital cost intensive stocks that you can purchase that will very quickly dwindle the value of your account and take up space in your portfolio. When you compare stock investing to something like options trading which allows you to u