Choosing a broker used to be a decision you made once. You opened an account where your parents banked, or where an old 401(k) rolled over, and you stayed for decades. In 2026 that habit has a price. Published margin rates at major brokers now run from about 5% to more than 12% on the same loan. Futures commissions on the same Micro contract run from under a dime with some paid plans to more than two dollars per side. And the menu has grown to include crypto, prediction markets, overnight trading and AI agents that can place orders on your behalf.

I was a licensed stock broker in the 1990s, and I still trade every week, including futures. What follows is an overview of choosing and using a broker this year. Each section covers one topic briefly and points to a longer article in this series that covers it in depth.

What changed in 2026

Retail brokers changed a great deal this year. CME launched E-nano futures on August 24, 2026, a stock index contract one-tenth the size of a Micro. Interactive Brokers, NinjaTrader, Robinhood and tastytrade offered them on day one, MetroTrade followed two days later, and Webull added the S&P 500 and Nasdaq-100 versions in mid-September. Prediction markets spread to almost every app-first broker. Schwab added spot bitcoin and ether in May, and E*TRADE added spot crypto in July. Robinhood, Interactive Brokers and Public all opened their platforms to AI in some form.

The biggest rule change came from regulators. On April 14, 2026, the SEC approved FINRA’s new intraday margin standards, which eliminate the $25,000 pattern-day-trader minimum. The rule took effect June 4, but brokers have until October 20, 2027 to implement it, so what you experience depends on where your account sits.

Pricing drifted apart at the same time. Several brokers repriced margin in mid-September, and the gap between the cheapest and most expensive lenders is now wide enough to matter to almost anyone who borrows. For the full timeline, broker by broker, read The Great Broker Shake-Up of 2026.

What you actually pay

For most people who buy stocks and funds, the largest brokerage costs sit in two places that rarely get attention: the interest charged on margin loans and the yield paid on idle cash.

On a $25,000 margin balance, published rates in October 2026 run from 5.15% at Public and 5.25% at Robinhood up to 11.575% at Schwab and Fidelity and 12.20% at E*TRADE. Carry that balance for a year and the difference between the cheapest and most expensive is about $1,760. Cash shows the same split. Schwab’s standard bank sweep has been reported at about 0.01%, while Fidelity’s SPAXX money market fund showed a 3.49% seven-day yield on October 8 and Robinhood pays 3.6% APY to Gold members.

I covered both sides of this in why your broker may be charging you double to borrow. Current numbers at every loan size are on BrokerNimble’s margin rate and cash yield comparison.

Cash account or margin account

Every brokerage account is either a cash account or a margin account, and the choice shapes what you can do. In a cash account you can’t borrow, can’t sell short and can’t get a margin call. With stocks and ETFs, you can’t lose more than you put in. The catch is settlement. Trades settle one business day after the trade date, and if you buy with unsettled funds and sell before they settle, you can trigger a good faith violation.

A margin account lets you borrow up to 50% of a purchase price under Regulation T. FINRA requires minimum maintenance of 25% of market value, and many brokers set 30% or more. You need $2,000 in equity to open one. Interest is charged daily, and in a falling market your broker can sell positions without notice.

The new rules make margin accounts more useful for small, active traders. Day trades are no longer counted, and eligible margin accounts with more than $2,000 get intraday buying power set by the broker. Schwab stopped counting day trades on June 8, 2026. Others are still phasing the change in. The details are in my comparison of cash and margin accounts under the new day-trading rules.

IRA or taxable account

The second account decision is about taxes. A traditional IRA may give you a deduction now, with withdrawals taxed later. A Roth IRA takes after-tax money, and qualified withdrawals come out tax-free. The 2026 IRA limit is $7,500, or $8,600 if you’re 50 or older. Roth eligibility phases out between $153,000 and $168,000 of income for single filers and between $242,000 and $252,000 for married couples filing jointly.

A taxable account has no contribution limit and no restrictions on access. You pay capital gains tax when you sell at a profit, at lower rates on positions held more than a year, and you can harvest losses to offset gains, subject to the 30-day wash-sale rule.

A few brokers now pay you to fund an IRA. Robinhood matches 1% to 3% (3% with Gold), Webull up to 3.5% and Public 1%, each with holding requirements. A common order of priority is the employer match first, then an IRA or Roth, then a taxable account. Where your next dollar should go, IRA or taxable, walks through the trade-offs. Your tax adviser should have the final word.

Futures and the new E-nanos

Futures let you take a position on a stock index, or on assets like bitcoin and ether, by posting a deposit instead of paying the full value. That deposit works very differently from stock margin. It’s a good-faith deposit, sometimes called a performance bond, and you pay no interest on it. Positions are marked to market every day, so gains and losses settle into your cash daily. If your equity falls below the maintenance level, you get a margin call, and the broker can liquidate. Losses can exceed what you deposited. How futures margin works covers the mechanics in plain English.

Contract size is the variable that matters most. At an S&P 500 level of 7,000, one E-mini controls $350,000, one Micro controls $35,000 and one E-nano controls $3,500. A 70-point move, which is 1%, is worth $3,500 on the E-mini, $350 on the Micro and $35 on the E-nano. CME introduced E-nanos because record index levels had made even Micros large for small accounts. My guide to E-nano futures covers all four indexes and where to trade them.

Commissions vary as much as margin rates. Per side on a Micro E-mini, Interactive Brokers charges $0.25 on its fixed plan, MetroTrade $0.29, NinjaTrader and Tradovate $0.39 on their free plans, Robinhood $0.75, E*TRADE $1.50 and Schwab $2.25. Exchange, NFA and clearing fees come on top. A trader doing 100 Micro round trips a month pays about $50 in commissions at the cheapest broker and about $450 at Schwab. Most brokers charge the same commission on an E-nano as on a Micro, so cost takes a much bigger bite of a small trade. BrokerNimble’s futures commission table lists every broker side by side.

New frontiers: crypto, prediction markets, overnight trading and AI

Crypto is now a standard menu item. Robinhood offers about 90 coins, Public 60+, Webull 50+, tastytrade 20+ and Interactive Brokers 15+. The traditional firms are narrower. Schwab offers bitcoin and ether at a 0.75% fee, E*TRADE offers bitcoin, ether and solana at 0.50%, and Fidelity offers four coins, including in a crypto IRA. Crypto accounts generally sit outside SIPC protection.

Prediction markets, where you trade contracts tied to the outcome of events, are offered at Interactive Brokers, Robinhood, Webull, tastytrade and Public, and Tradovate and Ironbeam offer event contracts. Schwab doesn’t offer them. Overnight trading has gone mainstream as well. Interactive Brokers lists more than 10,000 securities overnight and Schwab about 1,300, and spreads are wider in those hours.

The newest frontier is AI. Interactive Brokers lets clients link an account to Claude, which drafts stock and ETF orders that the client approves one by one. Robinhood’s Agentic Trading beta lets a third-party AI agent trade in a dedicated account, and if you tell the agent not to ask, it can trade without confirming. Public’s agents can trade Kalshi event contracts. My approach, laid out in what brokers now allow AI agents to do, is to start with a separate small account, paper trade first, skip margin and set a loss limit.

Cards that pay you in stock

Several credit cards now deposit rewards straight into a brokerage account. The Robinhood Gold Card pays 3% on everything and requires a Gold membership. The Fidelity Rewards Visa Signature pays 2% when deposited into an eligible Fidelity account, with no annual fee and no foreign transaction fee. The SoFi Unlimited card pays 2% into SoFi accounts, and the Schwab Investor Card pays 1.5%.

On $30,000 of annual spending, that comes to about $850 a year at Robinhood after the $50 Gold fee, $600 at Fidelity or SoFi, and $450 at Schwab. Treat these rewards as a rebate on spending, separate from anything your investments earn, and remember that carrying a balance at card interest rates wipes them out quickly. The full comparison, including the $895 Platinum Card for Schwab, is in my rundown of the credit cards that pay you in stock.

Switching brokers

You start at the new broker by submitting a transfer instruction form, and the new firm pulls your assets through the ACATS system. It usually takes about a week. Most delays come from forms that don’t match, so copy your name, account number and account type exactly as they appear on the old account and attach a recent statement.

Many brokers charge an outgoing fee, commonly around $75 to $125. Interactive Brokers charges no ACAT fee, Schwab reimburses up to $125 for accounts of $10,000 or more, and many receiving brokers cover the fee. Transfer in kind to avoid selling and triggering taxes, expect fractional shares to be liquidated, and leave a little cash behind for final fees. Let the transfer close the old account; don’t close it yourself.

Sign-up offers can sweeten a move. E*TRADE’s current offer requires opening by October 31, 2026, and tastytrade’s ends November 30, 2026. Both require holding the money for 12 months. The step-by-step version is how to move a brokerage account without losing a dime.

Reading your statement

Your monthly statement shows most of what your broker costs. Start with the account summary, which shows beginning and ending value, deposits and withdrawals, and the change in value. Then check the holdings section for cost basis and unrealized gains, and the activity section for trades, dividends and interest.

Three areas deserve extra attention. The cash sweep shows where idle money sits and what it earns. The margin section shows your debit balance and the interest charged; divide the interest by your average debit to find your real rate. The fee lines show advisory fees, transfer fees and the like. Some costs never appear at all. Fund expense ratios reduce your returns without a line item, and payment for order flow isn’t on the statement. My section-by-section guide to reading a brokerage statement shows what to look for.

How to choose

The right broker depends on how you invest. A long-term investor who rarely borrows should care most about cash yield, retirement accounts and service. An active trader should look hard at margin rates, futures commissions and the platform itself. Someone with significant assets may value a branch network and phone support. Schwab offers phone and chat around the clock and about 400 branches, while Public offers in-app chat only.

Check protection too. SIPC covers up to $500,000, including $250,000 in cash, if a broker fails, though it doesn’t cover market losses. Futures accounts sit outside SIPC and are held in segregated accounts under CFTC rules.

I’ve boiled the process down to seven questions to ask before you choose a broker. To compare the brokers themselves, BrokerNimble lines up 14 US brokers on fees and features.

The complete series

Disclosure: Peter Agro runs BrokerNimble.com, an independent broker comparison site that plans to join broker affiliate programs and may earn referral fees in the future. Figures were checked in October 2026 and change often; confirm current terms with the provider. This article is for information only and is not investment, tax or legal advice. Futures, margin and options trading involve substantial risk of loss, including losses greater than your deposit.