It’s too bad Freetrade.com went the way of dinosaurs (that have been bought out by bigger dinosaurs). It’s replacement, iZone from Ameritrade, looks okay but isn’t as good as Freetrade.
I’ve been scourging through the numerous online brokers lately, and it seems none are really solid. I guess you can’t expect great service for cheap commission rates. It seems the customer satisfaction rate for brokers are similar to the customer satisfaction rate from car dealership. Yikes!
Brownco seemed pretty good, but unfortunately it got bought out by another dinosaur too (E*Trade).
Interactive Broker looks to be okay, but I don’t think I’ll trade enough to make it worth while.
The ones I’m actually considering are Firsttrade and Scottrade. Low commission rate, no account maintenance fees, no inactivity fees, and other related fees are fairly low too. It’s a tough call still because I can’t find that many user opinions on Firsttrade, and the ones I do find for Scottrade are love ‘em or hate ‘em types.
Anyway, I think I should take some more time to establish what my needs actually are before I start throwing money away to wacky fees.
7 Comments to “Finding the Right Online Discount Brokers”
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November 9th, 2005 at 9:37 am
Yeah, I’d definitely figure out what your needs are before you waste time signing up with anybody.
For myself, Firsttrade was just about perfect, mainly because the vast majority of my holdings are mutual funds and they charge me precisely zero to purchase funds so long as I held ‘em 180 days (no problem here – as an indexer, I’m infinitely more likely to hold funds five years rather than five days).
Can’t speak much to their individual stock trading, since the only stock transaction I’ve done through them was a few shares of iShares:Brazil (which, in retrospect, I should have bought *lots* of shares of… ;). Transaction went smoothly, but like I said, it was my only stock transaction through them…
November 9th, 2005 at 8:21 pm
Hey! Glad I stumbled upon you. We just setup a new site called InvestorGeeks.com, and we’ve been privately having a discussion over which online brokerage to do our trading through. Something realtively cheap, but a good mix of features.
Stop by the site to say “Hi” when you get a chance!
~ Chris
November 10th, 2005 at 9:04 pm
I’ve been very please with optionsXpress. Though it caters to people trading or investing in options, it’s good for straight stock investors as well. Fees are low and can get lower after you reach a certain number of trades for the year, execution is fast, and customer service, both by e-mail and phone, has been excellent.
November 11th, 2005 at 4:51 am
sean: thanks for the comment and info on firsttrade.. ishares brazil sure as heck is doing much better than other ones ive seen. hmm i didnt realize they dont charge as long as you hold for 180 days, good to know, thanks!
chris: ill definitely stop by to check out the site, looks interesting so far.
diffus: hmm I have never heard of optionxpress before, I’ll check them out. how long have u been with them? their per contract rates are definitely nice.. hmm. i’m surprise their broker assisted trades are same price as regular. thanks for the info, I’ll look up more info on ‘em.
December 17th, 2005 at 11:39 pm
I also use OptionsXpress since more than 1 year now. Good site, very good customer service. Not the lowest fees ($14.95) compared to $7 or so for Scottrade otherwise I am fully satisfied till now. They also have live streaming quotes. I only trade stocks but they have great tools for options trading.
February 3rd, 2006 at 8:59 pm
I had Scottrade but I recently switched over to Firstrade because Scottrade no longer has ACH transfers and they began charging to buy many mutual funds which are free at Firstrade.
February 4th, 2006 at 10:14 am
thanks for the input, yeah that no ACH deal is a booger.