Cheapest place to get Corporate bonds?

Whats the best way to buy Corporate bonds? Im with scottrade and they charge 35 bucks + 3 dollars per bond (terrible price if you are buying for short term. E-Trade is much cheaper (1 dollar per bond, min 10$ order) BUT E-Trade has an account service fee of 40 dollars every 3 months if you arent doing anything, so I dont want that. Any way to buy a corporate bond on the secondary market withouth giving up 50% of the yield on one of my bonds by paying huge commissions or huge markups/markdowns?

 

Schwab is also 1 dollar per bond, minimum $10 order, maximum $250 order. AFAIK Schwab has no inactive account fees.

IB is 1 dollar per bond, min $1 order. They will charge you $10 a month data fee if you don't pay $30 in commissions.

 

..what size are you buying? if you buying 100 or so at a time you could probably open an account with a local B/D and get better prices...e*trade doesn't have a bond desk do they

 

Thanks. Looks like Schwab is the way to go for me.

BTW, I never seen anyone use AFAIK before and I thought that the name of the brokerage was "AFAIK Schwab" lol I thought maybe it was a subdivision or something of Schwab that dealt only with bonds...then i finally Googled AFAIK and found out it means "As Far As I Know" hehe

 

most of their traders would be under the desk

 

IMHO is helps to learn net speak. Time to get educated before you get pwned.

 

So...IGISL AM NS AP ASAP


<translated> I guess I should learn as much Netspeak as possible as soon as possible.

 

Fidelity is an option too. No account fees. Higher sweep account interest than Schwab. $1/bond, $8 min. per order, $250 max., $50 max per trade for bonds with less than one year maturity.