You can absolutely open your own brokerage account, and we encourage you to do so that you can see that you are getting the same treatment that we are passing along to you.
The drawbacks of opening your own brokerage account:
1. Large deposit requirements - Brokerages usually ask for a minimum deposit of somewhere between $3,000-$10,000.
2. Fees - You will have to pay your own data fees to see live market data, and also pay extra for specific charting connections, upgrades, etc.
3. Mistakes are costly - As we’ve said a million times, trading is very hard. A mistake in a test, the most you can lose is your test fee. A mistake in a brokerage account, you can lose many multiples of that.
4. Headache - Compliance documents and getting the account setup can sometimes be a pain. Several days of back and forth emails with a brokerage compliance department are not fun.