Over at one of my read daily sites, My Money Blog, I saw a post today continuing the blogger’s review of Zecco, yet another online discount broker. What’s so special? Well, here the term discount actually means free. There are no commissions for trading stocks, up to 10 per day and 40 per month.

This sounded so good to be true that the first time I read about this company, I simply shrugged it off, thinking it was a fly-by-night operation I would never trust my money with. Then I found out they have been around since July, and that they are insured the same as any other online broker.

The more I read about them, the more I was drawn to the possibility of being able to trade individual stocks without spending 10-20% of my trade on commission. This made investing in individual stocks with as little as $2500 (their account minimum) quite possible.

Of course, I should wait until I can make $2500 just a part of my retirement portfolio, so that I’m not investing 100% in stocks. I may still go ahead and invest $1000 in the Vanguard Star fund, like I have mentioned before. But having the ability to trade individual stocks so soon on the horizon is a very exciting idea.

Zecco is not without its negatives, of course. There’s a fee if I ever withdraw all my money. The interface isn’t nearly as slick as other online brokers. And there’s a bit of a hassle to get started in terms of delays when mailing and faxing documentation. But I consider these negatives easy to deal with when I’m saving $7 per trade (compared to Scottrade).

In the meantime, I will continue to work with my mock portfolios, which I have decided to post and maintain on this site. I will keep track of stocks and fund shares that I buy or sell, and will keep a graph of my progress as well. Right now I have four mock portfolios: Two retirement and two investment. One of each is more traditional (target retirement fund; index fund) while the other portfolios contain value and growth stocks, respectively. Though I might drop the value stocks portfolio, as at my age (25) I don’t really see a need to invest in value stocks which I would hold for several years.