I'm using Scottrade now. I've done decently in the last two months, racking up 32% in gains (13% and 19%, respectively). I don't think that's sustainable long-run, but I digress. I'm using Scottrade, and in two months, not counting the purchase of option contracts, I've made 73 trades. 73 x $7.00 = $511 It's a small price given what have been pretty spectacular real gains in my portfolio, but - here goes: I love Scottrade because of fast order execution, reasonable money market account rates, reasonable option contract prices, and very good customer service (plus a local office that has live humans who you can get a hold of immediately). Am I better off with IB or Sogo, or if not, am I better off with anyone else? I truly appreciate any feedback with online brokers you've had good experiences with. Thanks.
You appear to be doing well at this stage of your trading. commissions are important, yes, but not with your style and frequency of trading.(I'm making assumptions) Equities, mostly long, dabbling in options. Spectrum trader invest/position/swingtrade but you want to trade more often intra-day. Scottrade was the second brokerage account that I opened and I still have some core assets with them. I'd stay put and concentrate on what's already working, raise cash and study new markets you wish to pursue. Why upset the balance. If it isn't broken..... Open an account down the road for a variety of instruments, right now may not be the best time to become somewhat off-balanced, learning a new platform or web interface.
Do Three (3) things First, document what you do every trading day...The more detail the better.. Second, don't change a thing...Just do the same thing every damn day... Third and final...be patient and wait to see how long you can keep up your recent performance... Thats it. Good luck Steve
You are better off staying with Scott trade. Scott trade is good for swing trading and holding stocks for longer than 15 minutes. Stay with what you are comfortable with and don't let anybody talk you into changing. If you change brokers, you will lose and you will not be happy. Scott trade is a good strong company. They are rated #1 for a reason. Because they are good.
Thanks for the feedback. Having someplace to ask these kinds of questions, and to just generally get feedback on all things trading, is a huge psychological benefit. I think you are intimating that trading more frequently than I am already, which brings the commission issue into focus, may cause be to change my methodology, which granted, is only two months old - - but why upset what is working? Thanks again.
IB is the closest thing to institutional platform you can get as a retail trader. But you need other realtime charting software with it cos the IB chart is very crappy. Hope this helps.
Whatever you do, do NOT go with IB trading. Their software is the weirdest I have ever encountered in the 20 years of my trading career. If you go with IB, you will lose for sure. If you are happy with Scott Trade, then I would recommend you stay with Scott trade. Scott trade gives you more for your money. They give free charts, free live up to the minute news. They have free good trading software with excellent charting. Their charting is better than the paid charting packages. If you want to lose your money, then sign up with IB. If you want to keep winning, then stay with Scott trade.
I am in the process of switching from Scottrade to IB right now. I took a chunk of cash out of my Scottrade account to open an IB account about 3 months ago. I must agree that IB's software (TWS) is just plain wierd especially after using Scottrade Elite. I day trade equities and have recently wanted to try futures, IB has allowed me to do that. Although there are three things that pushed me to try IB. About 2 or 3 out of 10 trys to go short Scottrade either didn't have the stock available or didn't have the quantity I wanted. I know IB isn't perfect here either but at least they list what is available to be shorted. The restriction that stop orders had to be farther than 25 cents (or was it 15, I forget now) away from the most recent trade (probably not an issue for most, but it cramped my style). You could not have more than one pending order on a given position. I use IB's bracket orders often. In any case it sure sounds to me as though you should stick with Scottrade too. But why not try IB yourself though? Go the the IB web site, download TWS, and use the demo account for a while. It was a bit daunting to me at first but Elite seems like a toy after seeing the capabilities that IB and TWS offer.
Jesus... don't confuse sophistication with weird... it's the only thing out there for retail traders that comes close to a typical institutional platform... you will need those sophistication if you're serious about trading...