[mcdougle]

Depending on OP's needs, this is probably the best. If he's trying to trade, he can open an account and (I believe) there is no minimum balance for buying/selling. I think $3k is the minimum for margin trades (and you get super-low commissions if you fund that much).

But you don't even need an account to use it. Just create a paper-trading account and you have access to the application, plus you can play around with trading without actually spending any real money.

Furthermore, dough.com is (kind of) a branch off of ToS - less functionality, but a much prettier interface. You can sign up on dough and get full access (without being able to actually trade, of course) without a brokerage account or paper account at all.