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| Dave Rathbun |
 Posted: Fri Jun 03, 2005 2:08 pm Post subject: |
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CFO
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No problem at all. My point was that you can get lower commissions at a full service broker (I've even been able to get shares of various IPOs) but you "pay" for it by having a higher asset level.  The difference between a $5 commission and an $8 commission isn't much (unless you trade very frequently) but the difference between a no-frills broker and a full-service broker may be significant.
Then again, I've only used E*Trade and Harris, so I don't have a lot of choices to compare. |
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| freeye |
| Posted: Fri Jun 03, 2005 3:12 pm Post subject: |
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Investing Manager
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d.r.
i'm still developing my trading dicipline for individual stocks and through the simulator i've learned the value of selling the losers and moving to cash on a high volume up day or series of days and then buying into better stocks than what i sold on the high volume down days or series of days.
thus it is appealing to have the lower commissioned on-line broker during my learning process.
i've been less interested in ipo's since the lack of believable financials seems to be an issue for me, since i read an article once that seem to say that the management are often coached in ways to put 3 quarters of good numbers after the ipo together... by the sponsoring investment bank and then when reality catches up, the bankers and many of the company management have sold much of the stock.
i guess the inexpensive trades of the online broker would allow me get out easy enough with the investment bankers and management but i've setting up to lean towards building a position and holding on for longer than 3 quarters.
maybe i'll need to rethink this aspect of my dicipline.
have the ipos you've gotten through the harris direct online broker turn out well? do you have to sell them fairly quick to make it worth you time? |
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| Dave Rathbun |
| Posted: Fri Jun 03, 2005 4:45 pm Post subject: |
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CFO
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Some of them were great, all of them made money. Selling too quickly (a practice called "flipping") is frowned upon, and according to their guidelines "may affect allocations in future offerings"...
I didn't apply for every IPO that they offered, and I didn't get all of the ones I applied for. But I didn't lose money on any of them that I did get.
Having access to IPOs is not a huge deal... I point it out simply as a consideration. Options trading is also not for everyone; the fact that they finally dropped option comissions to a reasonable level does make me happy though. Options contracts use to be double or triple normal stock trade commissions. |
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| deprived |
| Posted: Sun Jun 05, 2005 6:34 am Post subject: no balance required |
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Investing Sr. Associate
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| sharebuilder.com offers a no limit account to trade, their fee is 4 per trade-bad side is they charge for everything practically. |
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| waltman |
| Posted: Fri Jun 24, 2005 8:36 am Post subject: H |
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Investing Sr. Associate
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| jumbojack wrote: | newbie alert  i just applied for an account at firstrade. they're offering 100 free trades and the only requirement is to make a $2k initial deposit and maintain $2k net equity for 6 months. |
How's the Firsttrade account working out? I was thinking about opening a ShareBuilder account. I thought it is cheap to BUY stocks from Sharebuilder, but cost more to sell them?? So the idea is you can say - buy 10 shares of ADBE every month and not pay a fortune in commissions? |
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| jumbojack |
| Posted: Fri Jun 24, 2005 4:38 pm Post subject: |
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Investing Sr. Associate
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| sorry waltman, i decided not to open a firstrade account after all. they emailed me saying they weren't going to give me the 100 free trades. but since you mention sharebuilder, i just got my $50 bonus after opening an account with them a month ago. the best deal at sb are ETFs, and probably the only good deal. i'd stay away from buying stocks, unless you're ok with trading only on tuesdays and paying $16 if you want to sell. i think scottrade is a better choice, or at least that's where i'm leaning towards because of what others have posted here. |
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| Grimreaper |
| Posted: Thu Jul 14, 2005 4:31 am Post subject: |
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CFO
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| Anyone else having technical problems with Ameritrade today? with more clients coming on board because of the merger with Waterhoser and AMTD stock about to tank I imagine the occasional problems will become more frequent, I heard Scottrade is pretty good, for anyone who uses them, do they show the size of the bid to the asked for each trade like Ameritrade does? like for instance, the current bxa for GOOG is 300X300 at 304.30 according to Ameritrade, thanks! |
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