I have been daytrading with E*Trade for several years since it took over Brown & Co who I had been with for about ten years. E*Trade kept the Brown commission of $5.00 plus a 10% monthly rebate of commissions over $350 per month. I have been pleased with the service and the Pro platform. I trade mostly etfs such as XLF,KRE,GDX,SMH,QQQQ (about 90% of the time.) I am thinking now of going over to Fidelity and trade EFA,EEM,IWM (the most liquid commission free etfs). I average 5-8 trades per day. That could be a round trip savings of up to $80 or more per day. Any opinions? Thanks in advance.
Interesting. I didn't know that Fidelity was waiving commissions on ETFs. I worked at BrownCo and was bought out (and laid off) by E*Trade so my acct & pricing is also legacy Brown Co. I have heard that Fidelity's trading platform is not as robust as E*Trade's - but have not experienced it first hand. I would also be weary of the different service levels - it's one thing to open an account and test out Fido - just don't close out that E*trade/Brown legacy acct because the extra percs you get are way better than the average starting retail acct at etrade.
Fidelity is waiving the commissions for some 25 etfs(ishares). I guess it is a response to Schwabs waiver for its in house etfs. Schwabs etfs are rather limiting. If I try Fidelity out I will keep my E*Trade account for the Brown perks, although I suspect E*Trade will be taken over some day and the perks will go away.
Free is a damn good deal. I read everything I could find on their website and there doesn't seem to be any limits on frequency or minimum hold time, although you would still be subject to the day trading account balance rule. Can anyone confirm or deny? Could you really scalp tick by tick 1000 times a day?
I myself try to catch the major intraday swings on the etfs whether it's 0 or 6 times a day. Even with no commssions trading tick by tick is a losing deal (and you will have a stroke within 3 weeks- you can't beat the tradebots like that). The one fear I have with Fidelity is that they will change the rules once they have your account. They screwed me in the late '80s when I was trading their hourly selects and then they added a short term trading fee.
To test automated trading for real money on the cheap. Also, maybe one of my very marginal algorithms could be profitable with no commission overhead.