I've noticed most of you guys on here seem to be using various different types of programs and/or brokers for trading. Since I am not trading with huge amounts of money, I use Scottrade because of its low fee. I don't know if its just me but I get the impression that very few of you use Scottrade. Which leads me to my question, am I stupid for using Scottrade?
I've had an account with them for over 5 years and never made a trade. Just transferred stock from other brokers who were crappy.
they were my first broker. There's nothing wrong w/ them if you are swing trading. If you are trading huge volume throughout the day, you are doing yourself a huge disservice b/c the commissions will start to hurt after a while.
I used Scottrade and thought they were good compared to Quick and Reilly and Brown and Company, but realized Scottrade sucked and went to IB. IB is 100x better than Scottrade.
I primarily swing, and moved my account from IB -> Scottrade. I still have the IB account, but my favorite broker right now is just2trade.com; I'm using all three for different systems. I rate IB triple F for customer service; also their platform makes random errors that they never hold themselves accountable for (ie randomly executing PARTs of a DAY order over nite, OTCBB stock orders not working on some versions of TWS, TWS giving all ??s and requiring an upgrade and introducing new bugs etc). IB does not have a definitive stable version of their software, TWS, and constantly forces you to beta test for them. IB does have a nice universal account for trading multiple products and when it works IB is good tho non intuitive. I just can't recommend them with all th erroneous problems/executions (orders entered previous day getting erased for current day??) etc. so you really have to keep an eye on them. Plus, they will never admit they are wrong and generally will ignore you when they are wrong. So far I have nothing but good things to say about Scottrade. Ironically my fills are as good or BETTER than IB (usually the same, but so far NEVER EVER WORSE) lol IB smart router. Well, one bad thing is that Scottrade takes 1 day to adjust your margin balance (ie available buying power). I think IB is real-time. It did take Scottrade longer to recognize a stock split than IB, IB did it same day and it took Scottrade 3 days (it was a Chinese stock (JASO) and they said the delay was because it was on a Chinese New Year).
How do you know Scottrade gives the same fills as IB? have you done side by side comparisons? I was suspect of bad fills with Scottrade so I did a side by side comparison of market orders for a stock. The stock orders were placed 1 second apart(as fast as I could click on execute on one screen and the other). IB filled the order .69 better than Scottrade. The orders were for 100 shares of a stock. That equates to $69 difference. Not to mention IB cost $1 for the trade and Scottrade cost $7. You are also correct about the margin issue with Scottrade. Scottrade does have better customer support, but for the money I am saving with IB, I will deal with crappy customer support. peace.
market orders on the open. IB has =NEVER= been better, however I have only run them side by side since last August/September. There are probably 10-20 trades that overlap during that time period so it may not be a good enough sample. Additionally the scottrade improvement is usually only a few cents (signficantly less than 1%) but the fact is that Scottrade has given me equivalent or better fills, at least on the open. I trade enough size that Scottrade is SIGNIFICANTLY cheaper, unless is a really high priced stock. IB is a great platform for someone starting out or someone who isn't serious. If you are, you need to calculate in the cost of IB's cavalier attitude, for example in the past 60 days off the top of my head I can think of two botched executions by IB (one that triggered partially outside of normal market hours way outside the market) and another that got "stuck" and I had to go to the market myself that cost me about $700-800 combined. Plus, the added time that I have to login and check IB to make sure orders aren't cancelled, changed, or whatever (ie I dont have confidence in their platform) from an emotional point of view. I think IB should create another tier of customer service for ppl who are generating alot of commisions (gold/apex whatever like other shops) that they actually give good service to. I understand a 1 lot ES trader isn't worth their time, but certainly of their customers are. Its unforunate because IB has the potential to be really great, but I guess from what I've read about their founder it's all about efficiency and minimizing costs. But what about the cost of losing a high commission customer you already have? Anyhow, thats a heads up if you're thinking about using IB for serious trading or trading with size and you're not going to be in front of the screen all the time (I didn't mention the 2 recent outages because all brokers can have those)
I trade intraday 1k lots of 2-x index funds. Scottrade fills are instant. However be carefull with volatile names or fast markets, and use limit orders. I do not use market orders with Scottrade anymore on the 2-x struff. Otherwise its ok by me. I hear that they are soon to broaden their range of orders, which is about time.