Why the need for human brokers while there are computers?
There are still human brokers on the floor primarily due to tradition. Their numbers have certainly dwindled, however, and it's reasonable to expect the number of floor traders to decrease even more as electronic trading continues to grow. A key reason for human brokers, however, is due to privacy. Certain private exchanges such as dark pools maintain privacy for high profile clients and institutional investors, and human brokers are needed to execute anonymous deals in these venues. Even in this region, however, technology is supplanting the need for brokers. I don't believe there is any human-broker-free stock exchange, but Nasdaq and other traditionally OTC (over the counter) exchanges are as close as it gets since they never even had trading floors.
"All discount brokers offer a commission structure that is based on the average kind of order that their target audience will make. Different brokers advertise to different target audiences. They could all have a lot lower commissions than they do. The maximum commission price for the order ticket is set at $99 by the industry securities regulators. When discount brokers came along and started offering $2 - $9.99 trades, it was simply because these new companies could be competitive in a place where incumbents were overcharging. The same exists with Robinhood. The market landscape and costs have changed over the last decade with regulation NMS, and other brokerage firms never needed to update drastically because they could continue making a lot on commissions with nobody questioning it. The conclusion being that other brokers can also charge a lot less, despite their other overhead costs. Robinhood, like other brokerage firms (and anyone else trading directly with the exchanges), are paid by the exchanges for adding liquidity. Not only are many trades placed with no commission for the broker, they actually earn money for placing the trade. If Robinhood was doing you any favors, they would be paying you. But nobody questions free commissions so they don't. Robinhood, like other brokerage firms, sells your trading data to the highest bidder. This is called ""payment for order flow"", these subscribers see your order on the internet in route to the exhange, and before your order gets to the exchange, the subscriber sends a different order to the exchange so they either get filled before you do (analogous to front running, but different enough to not be illegal) or they alter the price of the thing you wanted to buy or sell so that you have to get a worse price. These subscribers have faster computers and faster internet access than other market participants, so are able to do this so quickly. They are also burning a lot of venture capital like all startups. You shouldn't place too much faith in the idea they are making [enough] money. They also have plans to earn interest off of balances in a variety of ways and offer more options at a price (like margin accounts)." &gt;HFT allows those with access to leverage sub-second propagation delays in pricing, which screws those without   Yes it does, just as the first web based trading systems provided investors an advantage over those using the phones to place orders, all the way back to when the wheel provided advantage over those running barefoot in battles. It is the cost of progress.  What is different for the first time in history is that humans are no longer being replaced by other, more efficient humans. They are being replaced by computers, to the point of eventually becoming obsolete. It enables a few to amass enormous leverage but that is a social problem, not an economic one. "I dug up an old article on Motley Fool and one approach they mention is to get the stock certificates and then sell them to a friend: If the company was liquidated, you should receive a 1099-DIV form at    year's end showing a liquidating distribution. Treat this as if you   sold the stock for the amount of the distribution. The date of ""sale""   is the date that the distribution took place. Using your original cost   basis in the shares, you can now compute your loss. If the company hasn't actually been liquidated, you'll need to make   sure it's totally worthless before you claim a loss. If you have   worthless stock that's not worth the hassle of selling through your   broker, you can sell it to a friend (or cousin, aunt, or uncle) for   pennies. (However, you can't sell the stock to a spouse, siblings,   parents, grandparents, or lineal descendants.) Here's one way to do   it: Send the certificate to your stock-transfer agent. Explain that the shares have been sold, and ask to cancel the old shares and issue   a new certificate to the new owner. Some brokerages will offer you a quicker alternative, by buying all of your shares of the stock for a penny. They do it to help out   their customers; in addition, over time, some of the shares may   actually become worth more than the penny the brokers paid for them. By selling the shares, you have a closed transaction with the stock and can declare a tax loss. Meanwhile, your friend, relative, or   broker, for a pittance, has just bought a placemat or birdcage liner." 1. Unfortunately it's pretty key to have *something*. School isn't that useful as a screening heuristic, especially for business majors, so 98.5% (approximately) of the value add comes from what you did while there/immediately after. I get the value in not wanting debt part but the world is what it is.   2. Go after the alumni network. Most schools have an internal job board. That can be something and it's a filtered environment.   3. You can try for an internship that's for juniors. Write a cover letter explaining your situation and why you think you'd still be a good candidate.   4. Other skills? VBA is nice. For an analyst in general my understanding is you need decent but not exceptional computer skills and rock solid Excel/research ability. Learn to write coherently and in a fact driven fashion since many, many people struggle with that.  5. Depending on your major, take a post-grad class or two in accounting/finance at a local university and talk to professors. They may have contacts and it could open doors. nice work! really enjoyed looking through your website. do you see any possible application of Machine Learning (specifically tensorflow) to this? I was thinking about building a trading bot that uses data from various APIs as a strategy just as an experiment but I'm wondering what your insights are. In Japan, there's a competition well-lasting since 2004 or so where you can run your own software agent in a virtual market. Market data is updated from the real world everyday. And if your agent proves good, the organizer puts it into the real market. The language is unfortunately limited to Java only to my knowledge. OS is not limited since your agent is supposed to run on the organizer's environment. English might not be well supported on their web site... That's not unreasonable if you're working in reactor control safety, or an autopilot, and therefore it is considered worthwhile running multiple systems in parallel that cross-check each other.  I'm guessing you weren't...  Edit: Minor phrasing tweaks for clarity. I dont think you understand teh main problem with HFT, they locate the machines next to the exchanges, and make money based on the latency between exchanges. This is not something anyone but them can do. And it is basically cheating the market.  You ever see the scam.. it was in mash, where [Frank Burns](http://www.funtrivia.com/en/subtopics/M*A*S*H----Out-of-Sight-Out-of-Mind-181978.html) got the radio signals early for the games, and would place bets on the games already knowing the outcome for when they were broadcast on official armed forces radio. That is what HFC is. They get the score of the game before you do, and then bet on the game.  and yes they place a lot of orders and cancel them, that isnt to slow other traders but to force more latency on the system, so they can know the scores even earlier.