Another year, another Smart Money broker survey! We’ve been reviewing SmartMoney’s best broker series for several years now (here’s 2008) and it’s always valuable to see how the different brokers fare from year to year. In the 2009 broker survey, we didn’t see too much change compared to 2008.

Unlike last year, which featured a merging of the discount and full service broker lists (in which TradeKing lost a #1 ranking they enjoyed for several years), they didn’t make any big changes to the way they analyzed the brokers. (here’s the list if you want to take a peek)

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In the latest issue of Kiplinger’s Personal Finance, they rated a dozen discount brokers on a variety of factors including commission, research & tools, fees, investment options, “easy of use,” and customer service. The results were pretty close to the results of Smart Money’s 2008 ranking of the best discount brokers.

Kiplinger’s Best Discount Brokers

1. Fidelity
2. Charles Schwab
3. Muriel Siebert
4. TradeKing
5. E*Trade
6. OptionsHouse
7. TD Ameritrade
8. WellsTrade
9. Firstrade
10. OptionsXpress
11. Zecco
12. Scottrade

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Need to absolutely reach your brokerage right now? Here’s a handy resources of all the brokerages I am aware of, their phone numbers, hours of operation, and a link to the brokerage’s contact page. On that page you’ll usually find a Fax number, overnight mail address, regular mail address, email addresses, and sometimes even an online chat. In many cases, there are multiple telephone numbers listed, I chose the one for existing brokerage clients (if that’s not what you need, just hit up the link and you’ll find the whole list).

Did I miss your brokerage? Let me know and I’ll add their phone number.

I just received an email from Zecco that they’ve lowered their minimum balance from $2,500 to $0. I still haven’t opened the account (and provided a review) like I said I would, a bit busy lately with some other projects and haven’t had a chance to dig up the necessary documents, but I still plan on doing it. Those who want to trade on margin, a risky endeavor, will have to have a minimum balance of $2,000.

For comparative purposes, TradeKing requires no minimum balance, ETrade requires a minimum balance of $1k, TD Ameritrade requires a balance of $2k, and Charles Schwab requires a balance of $2.5k.

I’m not yet advocating you open a Zecco account, I haven’t myself, but their offering is getting more and more tempting.