Trading
Trading & Brokers
Trading & Brokers follows an order from your screen to settlement. How a brokerage account works, what each order type actually instructs, why the bid-ask spread is a real cost, how "commission-free" brokers still make money, how short selling and margin borrowing work (and how they go wrong), what an option is, and what happens after the trade, when shares and cash change hands one business day later. Knowing the plumbing protects you from the most common and most expensive mistakes.
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How to Buy a Stock: Accounts, Orders, and What Happens After You Click Buy
A step-by-step explanation of buying your first share: choosing an account, funding it, placing an order, fractional shares, and the protections and costs to know about.
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Stock Order Types: Market, Limit, Stop, Stop-Limit, and Trailing Stop Orders
What each stock order type actually instructs your broker to do, with worked examples, time-in-force options, and the ways each one can go wrong.
Read the explainer →The Bid-Ask Spread Explained: The Trading Cost Nobody Bills You For
What the bid and ask are, how the national best bid and offer works, why some stocks have wide spreads, and how to calculate what crossing the spread costs you.
Read the explainer →How Stock Brokers Make Money, Including on "Commission-Free" Trades
Payment for order flow, interest on your cash, margin loans, securities lending, commissions, and currency fees: how brokers earn revenue in the US and Canada, with the rules that apply.
Read the explainer →How Short Selling Works: Borrowing, Fees, Unlimited Losses, and Squeezes
How short sellers borrow and sell shares they don't own, what the locate and margin rules require in the US and Canada, the arithmetic of borrow fees and losses, and how short squeezes happen.
Read the explainer →Margin Trading Explained: Reg T, Maintenance Margin, Margin Calls, and CIRO Rules
How buying stocks with borrowed money works in the US and Canada, with real arithmetic for leverage, interest, margin calls, and forced selling.
Read the explainer →How Stock Options Work: Calls, Puts, Premiums, and Why Most Beginners Lose
An introductory explanation of call and put options on stocks: strike, premium, expiry, and contract size, with payoff arithmetic and the research on how retail options traders fare.
Read the explainer →Stock Market Hours, Pre-Market, After-Hours, and the Move to 23-Hour Trading
When US and Canadian stock markets are open, how pre-market and after-hours sessions work, their risks, and the state of overnight and 23-hour trading as of November 2026.
Read the explainer →How a Stock Trade Settles: T+1, Clearing Houses, and Settled Cash in the US and Canada
What happens between clicking buy and owning the shares: T+1 settlement in the US and Canada since May 2024, DTCC, NSCC and CDS, settled cash, and cash-account violations.
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