Hi, I am an IB customer but my avg shares are now great enough that I am investigating switching to a broker like Scottrade that offers $7 commissions since it would be significantly less than IB with their .005 pricing. I am a swing trader so order execution is important but not paramount. Any experiences with Scottrade, or can you recommend any other great brokers that have flat fee per trade rather than per share? I am doing about 30-50 round trips per month. Thanks!
Empee I use scottrade and am very happy with them. I swing trade as well and dont mind the 7 dollar commission. They are cheaper than Fidelity and TD Ameritrade, and there should be a branch in your city. Most people who respond to your post will tell you to switch to IB or stay with them. I like the fact that scottrade is a private company, as well as local. There executions are very fast...little slower if your shorting. Their charts are easy to read and when you move your mouse over a candle, it tells the OHLC and the date, or time that session occured. Handy when ploting s/r lines. Maybe its my computer, but sometimes the charts have to be re-freashed from time to time, but its not that big a deal to me. You can have up to 20 stocks in your watch list, but you can have as many watch lists as you want..pretty sure. I have like 7 or 8. The only thing I dont like about scottrade is that you dont get any indicators with their basic account. Volume and an SMA, thats about it. I think they are worth a try. - nathan
I am a futures trader, not equities, but I strongly suggest against Scottrade. You will have much faster execution, better data, and better flat rates at places like MBTrading http://mbtrading.com/ or ChoiceTrade http://www.choicetrade.com/ There are many others too. Investigate the links in the "brokers" section here on ET... The point is, if you are a serious trader, stay away from Scottrade. Good luck
You just proved your own point. How can you shoot someone down that you've never even used?...Give a reason why MB is sooooo much better, other than commissions.
$7 per trade is 1,400 shares at $0.005 per share. Are your trade sizes larger than that? If you trade by providing liquidity (i.e. you are not hitting the market) you can save on commissions by switching to the unbundled pricing. Lastly, I find the per-trade pricing somewhat strange given that the exchanges and ecns charge per-share, i.e. the broker's costs are per-share.
Hey coinpurse69... What makes you think I NEVER traded equities? Or that I NEVER had an account with Scottrade? Or for that matter that I NEVER had an account at the brokerages mentioned? Or that I know no-one that has or does? I am not going to get into a pissing match with ANY BROKER evangelist. I posted my suggestion and if YOU don't agree with it that is your problem. I am not recommending any particular broker. As you'll recall I also suggested investigating the broker section here on ET. My original suggestion stands... if you are a serious trader, stay away from Scottrade. Do your own homework. Osorico
In 2006 Barron's rated MB #1 Software based broker and also #1 in trade technology and trade executions. And then you can see the comparison of all brokers ranked. See where MB ranked overall versus where Scottrade ranked. http://www.mbtrading.com/barrons2006.asp You can see where Barron's ranked MB and Scottrade overall ... and based on that I'd say MB has some definite advantages over Scottrade.
wait until you need to get out and it trades thru you or you get "order queued" or "pending cancel" and you are stuck there in limbo while your capital evaporates. almost any direct access broker is gonna be better than a discount broker. the markets havent really been rocking these days - wait until we get a surprise rate cut or some other event that sets things off. so you save $3 each way on $2,000 shares; on a $20 stock thast $3 on a $40,000 position... they sell the order flow - someone pays for it for a reason (actually, you pay for it). dont be penny wise and pound foolish