Should I put money into 401k or IRA?

[RIck_Astley]

I'm 20 years old I have a decent job and have been contributing to my 401k plan since I started with my company 1.5 years ago. They match my contribution up to 6% of my total salary, I've got just under 2,000 in my 401k right now and have been putting my money into 50/50 into 2 available options which have returned 3.94% and 15.38% YTD respectively. However I want to start investing in other stocks that aren't offered with my 401k I've thought about opening a Scottrade account however the fee's seem to be a little steep for me to make any money with only investing a thousand or so it would take some time to start seeing a return.

Should I move some of my money, say $1,000 into an IRA would that give me the option to start buying any stock available on the open market?