I was incredibly excited to learn that Zecco now has a $0 minimum balance. Couple that with the fact that they offer $0 trades, and you can now start trading stocks with what amounts to pocket change.

This is great news to me, as it offers me a chance to take my paper portfolio, which I monitor every day in Yahoo, divide it by 1000, and invest in a mini portfolio with only a few hundred dollars. Previously this would have been a terrible idea, as spending $5-$10 to buy only a few shares of a stock means the stock would have to increase dramatically before you even made back the money you spent on expenses. Not anymore!

The biggest problem? It’s a bit of a shaky time to invest. Papers such as the Wall Street Journal are featuring more and more bearish articles. NPR this morning stated that Merrill Lynch was giving a sell signal and said all their indicators pointed to a 15% drop in the market. Even the company I am working has their stocks on a short leash.

On the other hand, the past few days of profit taking and inflation concerns might serve as an excellent point to invest in the market, as I know if anything I won’t be investing at a market peak. I would love to invest in either Crocs (CROX), Gamestop (GME), or Garmin (GRMN). Unfortunately they are all several points off their 25 and 50 day moving averages (generally, most people recommend investing when a stock is near its moving average). So for now I will keep my eye on those and a few other stocks I like, looking for a good entry point.