Buying stocks online

[Anthony]

Ha, my thread title sounds like SPAM!

Anyone here use etrade.com?  I'd like to get involved in some small capacity, but it seems pretty complicated.

How does one "cash out"?  Say I buy $1000 worth of stock in something, it goes up, and now those stocks I own are worth $1400 and I sell.  After whatever commission they take, can I have that money go into an existing bank account?  Or do I need a seperate account?

[Sea Monster]

How does one "cash out"?  Say I buy $1000 worth of stock in something, it goes up, and now those stocks I own are worth $1400 and I sell.  After whatever commission they take, can I have that money go into an existing bank account?  Or do I need a seperate account?

Buggered if I know.

i use a special 'money market' account separate from my general accounts, but i don't know if this is across the board or peculiar to the company that manages my investments.

Any dividends or etc I receive can be deposited however the heck I wish.

[DaveK]

Well I read this thread title as "Buying stockings online", so I was a little disappointed.......

[eodtech]

How does one "cash out"?  Say I buy $1000 worth of stock in something, it goes up, and now those stocks I own are worth $1400 and I sell.  After whatever commission they take, can I have that money go into an existing bank account?  Or do I need a seperate account?

You take the proceeds from the sale of the stock you sold and the broker deposits the $$$ into  a Money Market Account (MMA) of your choice ( MMA pay a higher rate of interest than banks as an incentive for you to leave your $$$ in them for future stock purchases).  Once $$$ is in the MMA  you can elect to have a check drawn from the account by the broker  and mailed to you ( or electronic transfer)  to you or most MMA's you are given a book of checks and you can write checks for the funds in the account, usually with a check  minimum of $250. They don't want the MMA to be used like a daily/home checking account. I believe the MMA funds are now insured for $250,000 for the the next year or so. Before last month the MMA funds were not insured.

[Sea Monster]

( MMA pay a higher rate of interest than banks as an incentive for you to leave your $$$ in them for future stock purchases).

Well they used to.

Mine went from 4.something percent to 0.05%! 

[Whoey]

why buy stockings online when you can just borrow some from the wife...

[BIG-TARGET]

why buy stockings online when you can just borrow some from the wife...

Good idea!!  Victoria's Secrets asks way too many questions