Scottrade is a great broker, but they brag on their commissions, which if you read the fine print, its actually more than 7.00 flat. you pay an SEC fee when you sell (which is only a few cents) and I think, any size over 2k shares, they add on an extra .005 commission. go to google.com and type in "online brokers"...i'm sure there are some that dont advertise that might be worth looking at. cm69
I am not going to write a book to explain everything so I will just make a decision for you instead. Open an account with IB or MB. Youâre not a professional trader so just use free charts like on yahoo or bigcharts.com or whatever. They donât have any maintenance fees that I can recall.
I have been with TD Ameritrade for seven years and I am an Active Trader. I have had absolutely no complaints with AMTD and their overall performance including trade execution has been nothing short of superb. And since I have been a member I have gotten all the tools their for free. They include Streamer, real time streaming charts, Market scope, Market Momentum tool, Level 2 quotes, Advanced Analyzer and some more. I think to get this you have to trade like on average 15 trades in a qtr. But there was times where I did not trade for almost a year but when I resumed trading the active trader tools were still free and have conitnued to be. The streamer and Advanced analyzer has been the backbone of my trading. Along with the one minute real time chart too. I looked into Scott Trade and to qualify for their Active Trader set of tools called Scottrade Elite you have to have a minimum of 25K in your account. And maintain it. Also with Scottrade any trades under $1 they charge you $7 plus an additional .5% of the principal. That alone for me clinches the fact I would never go to this firm for trading. At Etrade you are not even guaranteed 9.99 commission. You have to qualify for it by trading a minimum of 30 trades a qtr. Otherwise its $12.99 a trade. No thanks. I have looked at many others and can say overall for swing trading and position trading AMTD is head and shoulders above the rest. Lets make it clear Ithough I am just talking about Swing and position trading. Not scalping or daytrading. There are definitely better broker firms for these two endeavours.
At Etrade you are not even guaranteed 9.99 commission. You have to qualify for it by trading a minimum of 30 trades a qtr. Otherwise its $12.99 a trade. No thanks. Etrade not payed contest win 36000 euro for author Author win contest(etradeworldcup with 111 countries,12 eligible for win,maj 2006) and etrade sended Adv.agreement ,which was against term & conditions ,was not public for broad public and was sneded to author ,as he performed task of winning .Agr. demanded longlife right to use author name in any adv. of etrade. Author avoided ,etrade deleted win
If you're only doing equities, and you're not active, why don't you try out zecco or bank of america - no commissions.
it's been inconsistent the past month, and is down again now. no, it's not my main brokerage (one of several) but i found out it was down when i was going to enter my stop. fortunately, my position isn't large, and i'll hedge it elsewhere if it goes through what would have been my stop, but ppl on the yahoo msg boards aren't happy now. (and according to posts there - which i can't verify, since the phone lines there are busy - there's no web or phone automation access).
I did not feel that TD Ameritrade is very good for active trading. There are some nice research screeners, where you can get trading ideas. You might do the same at Yahoo! or MSN Money. If you have an account that just sits there or trades infrequently, then it will probably work. If you find some particular services that they offer to be compelling, go for it. Their OTC BB rates ($9.95) sometimes turn ok, depending on your trading. But I would look at IB or MB for more active trading.
I've been with TD for years. Lately the site has been going down... like this afternoon. On the plus side they offer some decent tools, low commissions, banking services (checking etc.) and customer support is very good... for example today I sent an email complaining and got 20 free trades. On the minus side... they are not cutting edge technology wise... they just upgraded the site, before that for example you could not enter an option spread. Not the biggest deal if you just trade stocks. They also have no plans to add portfolio margin which may be why I finally move on...