From the Trade an ETF or stock page (logon required):
A. Select the Account you want to trade in.
B. Account information on the right shows the balance you have available to trade, your holdings, and the status of any open orders in the selected account.
A. From the Transaction type dropdown, select Buy.
B. Enter the Symbol for the ETF (exchange-traded fund) or stock you want to buy. If you don't know the symbol, click Look up symbol to search for an ETF or stock.
C. Select Get quote.
D. On the right, you'll see a real-time quote that includes the security's last trade, as well as the bid price, ask price, and other details.
E. Enter the number of Shares you'd like to purchase.
F. If you're not sure how many shares you can buy based on a specific dollar amount, use the Dollars to shares calculator to estimate. (Note: ETFs and stocks only trade in whole shares, not partial shares.)
A. Choose your Order type.
B. If you aren't sure which to select, click Order type next to the dropdown to learn about your options.
C. Depending on which order type you select, you may need to provide a limit price, stop price, or both. If you select anything other than a market order, you'll also be given the option to choose the Duration of your order (market orders use a "day" duration). The duration can be either the current trading day or 60 days, which is referred to as a "good-till-canceled" (GTC) order.
Once you complete all of the fields, Estimated transaction details will display at the bottom of the page to give you an estimate of the total cost of the trade (the sum of the principal cost and the commission to be charged).
A. Select Continue to review the details of your trade before you submit it.
On the Review and submit page, review the details of your trade.
A. When you're ready to proceed with your purchase, select Submit. You'll be taken to a Confirmation page that will show the details of your transaction.
