Comments on: Best Online Discount Brokers

By: BrianC

BrianC — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 20:18:56 +0000

I’m a fan of Optionsxpress–excellent customer service all around. Well worth the price for frequent traders. For those who only occasionally trade, I’d go with Tradeking.

By: stockmanmarc

stockmanmarc — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 22:37:24 +0000

Interactive Brokers has one of the lowest commissions in the industry. However keep- in- mind that they do not offer some of the bells n whistles as do a Fidelity, Schwab and TD Ameritrade but if you are looking for fast executions at a low cost they are hard to beat.

By: SavingEverything

SavingEverything — Sun, 18 Oct 2009 19:31:38 +0000

For me, I consider the following best online discount brokers and options brokerage houses: InteractiveBrokers, LightSpeed, TradeStation, TradeKing, SogoTrade, OptionsHouse, OptionsXpress, thinkorswim (now part of TD Ameritrade), FirsTrade, TradeMonster, ScotTrade, ShareBuilder, Zecco, , e-Trade, , Fidelity, Schwab, Vanguard, TDAmeritrade? Penson Financials seem to provide online brokerages tools, services to be a broker, as well as RidgeClearing, Genesis Securities.

By: john

john — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 01:35:15 +0000

For me – Think or Swim has a great platform and excellent customer service. Their charts are the best

By: DaveLiang

DaveLiang — Sat, 05 Sep 2009 04:06:09 +0000

Sogotrade is great at $3 (unlimited shares)

By: aquaswim47

aquaswim47 — Sun, 26 Jul 2009 22:21:28 +0000

Personally, I love Zecco. I believe they are a great broker, but you should start out with a broker like Scottrade, first. What I love about Scottrade is if you move your money from them, it costs you nothing. The customer service on Zecco is decent if you know what you’re doing and you can learn the ropes.

Another option is to start off with a small amount of money at Charles Schwwab. You can invest in mutual funds there. At Zecco, you can invest in ETFs and individual stocks. If you devote 85% into mutual funds and broad-based ETFs and only 5-15% into stocks or sector ETFs, you should be in great shape.

Long-term investing is the way to go. Novice traders shouldn’t be trading 10 times per month and neither should people with inadequate capital. Your trading costs should stay under 1%. Buying index funds are a great way to get a market return (whether good or bad) and to minimize expenses.

By: Fatubus

Fatubus — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 21:35:43 +0000

MB Trading charges around $1 a trade

By: former Etrade client

former Etrade client — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 16:00:25 +0000

I was an Etrade (now Scotia Itrade in Canada) customer and I have droppen them like a hot potato. Their customer service is pathetic, they are expensive and their research tools are inadequate while their optional platforms are expensive. In short Itrade is terrible compared to other discount brokers. DO NOT USE THEM. Go elsewhere, do your research, pay less and save your money. This bank is notorious for high fees and inadequate customer support.

By: Wolf

Wolf — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 00:18:59 +0000

Everyone seems to think $7-$10 a trade is ok.
Does anyone use a broker that charges by the shares traded?

To me paying 10 bucks to buy a stock and 10 bucks to sell it…seems a little heavy. My trading has been with futures…and a normal fee there is about 4 dollars…that’s in and out. Not 4 to get in and 4 to sell it.So 20 seems a little extreme for a full round turn.

Anyone paying by the shares traded..please post you broker. Thanks.

By: Fatubus

Fatubus — Sun, 24 May 2009 18:42:19 +0000

I use MB trading and also Interactive Brokers. They are both good and MB trading allows you to use software from quotetracker which is good for charts.

By: becky

becky — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 20:50:58 +0000

I use firstrade. It’s similar to scortrade except cheaper. I usually contact them via e-mail and I go quick replies. Plus I got cash rewards for referring to friends, every time I refer to a friend I get $50 credit to my account. Its fun.

By: regular joe

regular joe — Wed, 31 Dec 2008 19:15:49 +0000

Has anyone heard of MB Trading? Has anyone had any experience with them?

By: Hippo

Hippo — Sun, 07 Dec 2008 05:24:32 +0000

Dude, you are waaaaay off-line about Zecco, I just joined and I like ‘em! Free trades (at least 10 anyways), better rates across the board than most, great customer service (WAAAAY better than etrade), and the community is pretty cool.

By: A-l

A-l — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 18:38:14 +0000

I am a Zecco user and I love it. In October, there website was down for a day, and they offered everyone free trades for the whole month. I took advantage and made over 200 trades. October was a very volatile month to be doing this. I think Zecco is the best with the free trades for someone small like me who has under $25k. If I had over $25k I might consider WellsTrade. I wonder if when my account grows to $25k if I can just transfer over to WellsTrade my 50+ stocks in my acct. I’ve built in the past months.

As for Zecco, I use Buy – Limit and set the quantity and price, and when the market drops to that price, it triggers my buy. Then I set a Sell – Limit and set it higher, and when it triggers it sells at that price. It executes very well and is beyond easy to do. Setting up the account was a tiny bit challenging and might have taken a week or two but was worth it. Making free ACH transfers to my savings account is easy, I have withdrawn money as well so they are legit. I would recommend using Zecco. It’s SIPC insured so even if they go under if you have less than $100k in stocks you will keep them. I think Zecco will grow/survive though and other brokers will have to counter by reducing fees.

By: Austin

Austin — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 18:03:37 +0000

I have been doing some research on where to open my next account. I currently use Scottrade for both my IRA and a cash account. If you have enough money so that $7 trades don’t dent your returns I would highly recommend Scottrade. If however you are basically somewhat poor like myself I am not certain Scottrade can beat Zecco. Zecco has the 10 free trades and they offer a money market sweep account plus trades are only like 4.5 bucks after the 10 free ones. Clearly someone who is just starting to build their trading stake should clearly consider Zecco. Who cares if they don’t have good phone service? I hear they offer acceptable quick email support. I don’t need a lot of bells and whistles just low commissions, nice interest rates, and good executions which from what I can gather, Zecco does well. I will try to remember to post a follow up after I have actually evaluated them first hand though.