Generally speaking you can get a number of free trades with a brokerage if you have sufficient assets held at the bank and there are companies like sharebuilder that allow you to buy stock for only $4 in commissions
This is true. There have been a few example of failed assets on the NXT AE (e.g. ach and ReserveShare) where the asset issuers either suddenly disappeared or failed to issue dividends and then disappeared sometime later.
There have been steps taken to mitigate the risk of scammy assets on the NXT AE, however. For example, NXTInspect is one such service which aims to audit assets on the AE by looking at their business plans. Unfortunately, it doesn't completely eliminate the risk of scam assets.
The concept of using some kind of asset exchange is that you are trusting a third party with your assets which is not what Bitcoin is about.
Yes, that's why I said that it doesn't completely eliminate the risk of scam assets. In fact, eliminating that risk is impossible - reduced, sure, but not eliminated entirely. The same also goes for regulated stock markets in the real world too.
For any type of asset exchange, there must always be trust between the asset issuer and the buyer. Colored coins representing shares in a company are only as legitimate as the person who is issuing it.
By allowing everyone to easily create tradeable digital tokens representing any kind of asset, colored coins make trading accessible to everyone. Bitcoin was designed to remove the middleman (i.e. the bank) in financial transactions. Colored coins enable the ability to securely trade and verify assets issued from a trusted issuer without the middleman (i.e. the broker). The possibility that the asset issuer might choose to scam is something that is inherent to the trading markets and is not a problem that colored coins were designed to solve.
With bitcoin, you control your money when you control your private keys. With colored coins, the issuer is going to control your money
The 'middle man' changes from a centralized broker, regulated by goverment to a decentralized blockchain regulated by the algorithm. I.e. an emitionless entity that can can't be influenced or tempted to cheat. Sounds like an improvement to me.
The broker doesn't hold your money when you invest in a startup through them, it goes to the start up and you both pay fees to the broker. The broker can hold your shares for you but you get no protection from the issuer running away. The problem still exists and isn't what asset exchanges solve, asset exchanges replace the brokers.