Window trades help lower costs by matching buy and sell orders within the firms order book Low cost brokers also provide real-time trades but these are usually (but not necessarily) charged a higher commission .
When picking a broker you must not look at price alone. You should consider how much help you will need from the broker and what kind of services a broker provides before making your final decision.
Stock Brokers who provide the customer with the entire gamut of advisory and sales services are referred to as Full Service Brokers. Such organizations may help the customer in meeting his or her financial goals and aid with loans etc as well.
A retail broker is a brokerage firm that caters to the average investor or, in other words, the retail sector of investors - as opposed to the institutional sector of investors. Both discount and full-service firms are retail brokers. The majority of brokers who advertise on TV are retail brokers.
Since the spread of the Internet banking, it is usual to use an Internet connection to manage one’s own financial portfolios, including ordering the sell/buying orders, and define buying/selling prices. However you may still want to use a broker for the advice he or she may offer.
All Stock traders are not Stock Brokers and many people across the world can call themselves stock traders or part-time stock traders, despite having another profession in parallel with their regular trading activities in the financial markets
Low cost brokers execute orders only a few times a day by aggregating orders from a large number of small investors into one or more block trades which are made at certain specific times during the day. Such block trades are also sometimes referred to as window trades.
A transaction on a stock exchange must be made between two members of the exchange - a typical person may not walk into any Stock Exchange and ask to trade stock. Such an exchange must be done through a broker.
A Discount Broker or a Deep Discount Broker essentially provides trading facilities as the major service to his client. Many of these brokers offer investment advice, but short of the comprehensive planning you might get with a full service broker. They have excellent research resources available on their web sites and robust online capabilities.
In the UK, when acting as an agent, the stockbroker charges the client a flat fee and/or a percentage-based commission for undertaking the trade and the price quoted to the client must be the best price available in the market. When acting as a principal, the trade could be with another market participant or one of the stockbroker's clients. When trading in a principal capacity with a client, the broker is obliged to inform the client and no commission is charged.
Low cost brokers are generally less expensive for an investor who invests in small amounts (say, fixed dollar amounts) and who is not particular that the stock trade must happen in real time.