A Free-Trade Zone Is Born

A new commission-free stock-trading platform debuts today, one which my fellow Foolish contributor Rick Munarriz wrote about here and here. While he's fairly sanguine about the business prospects for Zecco, I'm rather excited about the money-saving potential for individual investors.

One of the more frequent questions we get at Motley Fool Hidden Gems, our small-cap stock investment service, is how a new investor with relatively little money to put into stocks can get the most bang for the buck. In short, which are the best low-cost brokerages out there that won't eat up an investor's portfolio with fees and commissions?