@ brownsfan019 Just started looking at the site, very good info. One video talked about high frequency trading, but the focus seems to be on fundamental rather than technical analysis, so pardon my potentially stupid questions. One Are you trading intraday, swing or "short term" investing? I assumed at one point I would be looking into futures but haven't got there yet, but don't mind changing directions.
Make sure you find out what the broker clears through. MB Trading clears through Penson. Penson is probably one of the WORST clearing firms out there, plenty of clearing errors, bad short inventory, and financially weak (look at their stock, PNSN). Don't just look at comissions, a lot of these brokers offer low commissions but bad fills on orders due to payment for order flow.
This is an insightful comment. (I wanted to reply to an earlier post criticising MBT but it looks like the moderators deleted it. Anyway, from memory...) Datafeed might not be the best in the industry but it's one of the better brokerage datafeeds (and free). If you are unhappy, you are always welcome to pay $100+ per month for IQ Feed or eSignal. I can't comment on the customer service... but "slow" responce is not the same as "bad". Regarding clearing, that's the only serious issue I can see with MBT. If at least once a year you can't trade in the morning because (through the clearer's inefficiency) the broker has no idea of the state of your account, this can cost a trader much more than a 3rd-party datafeed.
SpeedTrader told me they use Penson as well. How can can a person find out who the brokers uses for clearing? Recommendations on a good one?
For the amount of money you say you are planning to start out with, I would recommend TD Ameritrade (TDAT) or MB Trading. Penson Financial could be a concern if you were having more than $100,000 cash in the account. TDAT is a self clearing broker. My top pick for a broker is Interactive Brokers (IB) which I consider to have the best of everything except hand holding customer service. IB clears all of their own transactions. IB requires $10,000 to open an individual account.
There are a lot of small brokerage firms that clear through Penson, be careful. You can go on the brokerage firms' website and do a search for clear or clearing. If you can't find it, look to see their wire instructions, that will include the clearing firm's name.
I read about IB early on. They also require traders to have at least a hundred trades under their belts before they'll accept an application. Even though my starting account size is painfully small, I want it that way by design. Don't get me wrong, I'd be great to have .5 mil or more to play with, but more than likely I'd lose it in a couple of days. My "go-live" target date is a year away. This way every penny counts, and as I start to build my account now, when I start to use margin and bigger positions I won't feel like a kid playing with a loaded weapon and step up to a firm like IB with confidence. Thanks for the advice.
I didn't know IB required $10K for an account... I usually hear $4K down to $500. Anything less than $2k sounds sketchy to me, but $10K seems quite high.