I'm Not Good at Picking Stocks, so I Made Sure My Brokerage Account Had This Feature

When I opened a brokerage account, this was the most important thing I checked for. 

As a financial writer, I know the importance of investing if I want to build wealth. But while I know a lot about many different aspects of managing money, there's one thing I'm not very good at: picking stocks. I do not enjoy putting in the work involved to find companies to buy and I'm not interested in carefully tracking the investments in my portfolio. I just want something simple to invest in.

This doesn't mean I don't want to put my money in the stock market, though, since I know exposure to equities can help me earn better returns than if I bought most other assets. Since I want to make sure I can invest in stocks even though I'm not good at picking which company shares to buy, I made sure my brokerage account offered one key feature.

This brokerage account feature is crucial if you aren't picking individual stocks 

Since I am not interested in buying stock shares of individual companies, the biggest thing I looked for when choosing my brokerage firm was the selection of commission-free ETFs the broker offered.

ETFs, or exchange-traded funds, allow you to invest in an asset that's traded like a stock. But when you buy an ETF, you don't just buy shares of one company. The ETF takes investor funds and buys a big pool of assets, so you gain exposure to many different businesses. 

Different ETFs invest in different kinds of assets. For example, an S&P 500 ETF would use investor funds to buy shares of companies in the S&P 500, which is a financial index made up of around 500 of the largest U.S. companies. But a small cap ETF would buy stock in small companies, while a marijuana ETF would buy stock in businesses operating within the cannabis industry.

I wanted to make sure I could buy lots of different ETFs so if I wanted to, say, invest in healthcare companies because I believe they will outperform the market due to the aging population, I would be able to find an ETF that lets me buy into a bunch of businesses within that industry by just making one purchase.

Since I also want to keep my investment fees down, I wanted to confirm that the broker I chose would also not charge a commission for buying and selling ETFs I was interested in owning. 

And, because I don't like spending a lot of time researching, I wanted a broker that had a great platform for searching for ETFs with good screening tools so I could identify eligible investments quickly.

How I found the right brokerage firm

Finding the right brokerage firm was easy for me because I had my priorities in place. If you want to make sure you have the right broker for you:

• Think about what kinds of investments you'll make. If you're hoping to buy ETFs, you may choose a different broker than if you plan to invest heavily in cryptocurrencies. 
• Look at the fee structure. You don't want to pay high fees that eat away at your returns.
• Check out the trading platform. Can you easily buy and sell the assets you are interested in?
• Look into research tools. Does the broker provide an easy way for you to find the right investments to purchase?

By taking these steps, you can make sure you open an account with the right brokerage firm, given your investing style and future goals.