| Who is the best?? |
| ScottTrade |
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71% |
[ 5 ] |
| E*Trade |
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0% |
[ 0 ] |
| Fidelity |
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14% |
[ 1 ] |
| Wachovia |
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0% |
[ 0 ] |
| Share Builder |
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0% |
[ 0 ] |
| TD Ameritrade |
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14% |
[ 1 ] |
| WALLSTREETe |
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0% |
[ 0 ] |
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| Total Votes : 7 |
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| Author |
Message
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| vetelmo |
 Posted: Tue May 09, 2006 4:17 pm Post subject: Which online broker is the best? |
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Moderator
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Who do you use or think is the best? I know there has been thread posted before about this but it's been awhile and since Im due for a insurance settlement sometime soon, I want to know your opinions. Even if you don't have your own account right now (or yet).
I did find this website U.S. Stockbrokers and looks like it's pretty useful for info but I also want to know from people who use these different brokers and how they judge their service, ease of use and how their customer service is.
I opened up a sharebuilder account but I didnt trust that in the long run I would be able to make money and beat their fees. |
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| Im Not Warren Buffett |
| Posted: Tue May 09, 2006 6:08 pm Post subject: |
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CFO
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Vetelmo - when did you open your account? Sharebuilder probably isn't right for you with the fee structure - a place like Scottrade would probably be better for your more active trading style. Of course, if you can beat the commissions here (while playing with the same amount of money) then you shouldn't have a problem with them. Just treat it like its e$ and let it ride...  |
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| vetelmo |
| Posted: Tue May 09, 2006 7:08 pm Post subject: |
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Moderator
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| I opened a sharebuilder account a few months ago but I didnt activate it, I'm a big vagina I guess, lol! I don't know how much I'll have yet but I do know it'll be under 20k, most likey after paying off debts and medical bills it will be under 10k but I have to wait and see, and not speculate, lol. |
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| lostsoul01 |
| Posted: Wed May 10, 2006 9:44 am Post subject: |
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Investing Sr. Associate
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Here's my opinions...
ScottTrade - $7 trades - not bad, but I don't like their user interface. It just makes me not want to use it. Great customer service.
E*Trade - I've heard horror stories of their customer service. No personal experience.
TD Ameritrade - $9.99 trades - I'm out, done with them. Hated their minimum requirement, but they don't have that any longer. $49 for mutual funds I'd like to purchase. I don't like that one bit. Honestly, they have the BEST interface I've used so far. ACH transfers are so easy. Automated transfers are so easy. I wish they didn't try so hard to get rid of me though! Emailing with CS is similar to the conversations I have with my 4 year old.  Every time it has felt like they didn't even listen to my question, and just gave me any answer they wanted, even if it had nothing to do with my question.
FirstTrade - I'm in the process of switching my stuff to FirstTrade. $6.95 trades. $0 for mutual funds.
Izone - And there's always Ameritrade's Izone - $5 trades. This used to be FreeTrade.com. No experience, just throwing it out there.
I'd be happy to throw out some screenshots if it helps, although there's probably some on each of their websites. |
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| Dave Rathbun |
| Posted: Wed May 10, 2006 11:13 am Post subject: |
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CFO
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| lostsoul01 wrote: | | E*Trade - I've heard horror stories of their customer service. No personal experience. |
Confirmed, absolutely. Their email support is worse than garbage. |
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| frusnak |
| Posted: Wed May 10, 2006 3:14 pm Post subject: |
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CFO
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| td ameritrade is a great site since the merger went into effect. |
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| efflandt |
| Posted: Wed May 10, 2006 6:40 pm Post subject: |
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Investing Manager
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I did look around, but have not tried any others besides Fidelity, because their money markets seem to pay decent interest which can offset or more than make up for slightly higher trade fees if you hold some cash for opportunities, but do not trade too often. Over 1000 mutual funds (including non-Fidelity funds) have no transaction fee.
Initial trade fee is $19.95, but $50k in assets or frequent enough trades qualify for $10.95. And heavy traders pay $8. I am gradually converting IRA money to a Roth IRA, which can be done that day during market hours with a phone call (cost basis for tax purposes is closing price). I tell them not to withhold tax, covered with W-4 adjustment. Customer service answers questions posted on-line within a day or two, or a phone call can get a quick answer.
When I dropped off a check at 1 PM on a Friday at a Fidelity financial center to open a new taxable account, it was already deducted from my checking account before Saturday morning. That's fast.
My only other experience is with MellonInvestor.com for direct stock purchase (they can also DRiP). After $15 initial purchase fee, it is only $2 for subsequent purchases of same stock. But they only trade on Thursday and you have to place your order several days before that (by Monday or early Tuesday). So it is for long term, not market timing, but I do not know if they do IRA's. No problems. |
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| gncsmith |
| Posted: Thu May 11, 2006 5:47 am Post subject: |
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Investing Sr. Associate
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| esquire415 |
| Posted: Mon Jul 03, 2006 6:03 am Post subject: |
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Investing Manager
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So have you made your pick yet? are you still in Sharebuilder? If you like buying plenty of stocks, you're better of with Foliofn, and there's also BuyandHold.com
If you want low commissions without requiring you to be a daytrader, Scottrade and FirsTrade are the most popular. There are others like TradeKing, ChoiceTrade, and Lowtrades which may not have as much features set as the other two but you can go to their website and see which one meets your needs. |
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| Vester |
| Posted: Mon Jul 03, 2006 6:14 am Post subject: |
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Investing Manager
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| I'm curious too...did you go with Scottrade? |
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| tekbubble |
| Posted: Fri Jul 14, 2006 4:15 am Post subject: |
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Investing Manager
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For investing, folionfn.com can't be beat IMHO. Not so good for trading though.
$300 per year gets me 300 free window trades per month, $3.95 market, limit, stop orders. plus I can trade stocks in fractions (i.e. trade $25 of GOOG). plus i can trade by adjusting weights in my portfolio, purchasing pre-weighted portfolios, or by other means. |
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| Grimreaper |
| Posted: Fri Jul 14, 2006 5:19 am Post subject: |
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CFO
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Too funny! I just went on an AMTD rant this moanin about how their stock price is going sub $5 and the reason I gave long ago is manifesting itself today. I said AMTD isn't equipped to handle their customer base....especially in fast mawket conditions. About 10 minutes ago the Dow fell 30 points real quickly and I'm sho fokes was looking to panic! AMTD is still frozen up cause they couldn't handle panic!  Aren't you glad you doan own sumthin that is grossly overpriced and trade through AMTD? I told the girl in customer service who now has me on hold to sell her AMTD stock if she has any! |
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| Dave Rathbun |
| Posted: Tue Jul 18, 2006 9:35 am Post subject: |
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CFO
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| Didn't AMTD just recently merge with someone else? That's always a challenge. I don't use them, won't use them, so I don't have a bone to pick. My broker just recently got sold to E*Trade (I hate E*Trade) and they had all sorts of problems with the account conversions, but so far the trading services have all been just fine. |
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| sonicreducer |
| Posted: Wed Jul 26, 2006 10:46 am Post subject: |
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Investing Associate
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I've been using Firstrade for a while and like it quite a bit, especially the free mutual fund investing and automatic dividend reinvestment.
I also opened an account at Tradeking, but am still kind of on the fence with it ... their site just feels to clunky for me at times. |
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| crazyT |
| Posted: Tue Aug 22, 2006 7:25 am Post subject: |
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Investing Associate
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| I've used Scottrade for about a year and haven't had any complaints yet. Well, my only complaint is that when I'm only trading $1000 worth of stock at a time the trade fees really eat into your profits. The $14 round trip cost you 1.4%. I've been looking for less expensive options and came across Interactive Brokers. They have alot of mixed reviews though (most of the complaints were related to technical support with people not understanding how the software works). But they have a fee of $0.005 per share with a minimum of $10 a month in fees. So if you don't meet that through trading then they just bill you for the rest of it. |
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