Comments on: Reviews Of The Best Online Discount Brokers

By: lori

lori — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 15:38:39 +0000

I’ve opened Zecco two months ago and found not so great except the low commission fees. I have to pay things that Scottrade offers free and glad still keep that account. I am still looking for a better online co. and keep reading this web site.

By: Babs

Babs — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 22:13:31 +0000

All of the above comments are good of the above reviews of the companies. The best of all the online companies based on the comments and the review is the Fidelity online. If anyone decide to use Fidelity, further make sure you do your own due diligence. Best of luck!

By: Vince

Vince — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 18:43:55 +0000

Nicole, I’m a big fan of dollar cost averaging as well. To do it in a brokerage account, you’re going to need to find one with very low commissions or they will eat up your investments. TradeKing, Zecco and SogoTrade fit that bill. I have an account with Scottrade (great service!) but I set up an account with SogoTrade to cut down on trading fees. Unfortunately, I found the customer service and operation at SogoTrade to be so bad that I’m closing that account before I even funded it.

I”m now considering TradeKing even though the commission savings isn’t that great over Scottrade. They seem to get stellar grades all over the web.

Of course, if you’re looking for a full-service broker or someone who can really hold your hand, then discount brokers are probably not for you.

Good luck!

By: Nicole Chambers

Nicole Chambers — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 21:01:24 +0000

I am looking for a brokerage firm that would be good for a first time solo investor mainly interested in dollar based investing for a Roth/retirment? Any thoughts?

By: Dinker

Dinker — Sun, 30 Aug 2009 22:06:40 +0000

Hi, thanks for this handy blog post. Came upon it after watching the Suze Orman show and deciding to run a Google search on the subject. She was talking about how one particular guest ought to switch from his premium expensive full service broker company with Citibank/Citi Group and go with a discount brokerage firm instead for the extra savings. With the way online investing using ETF’s and mutual funds (for those who still want them) can otherwise be a do it yourself (DIY) trading system, I’m surprised people still choose to leave their money with the price gouging big box brokerages.

Not convinced about Zecco…really free trades? No way…I’m suspicious.

TradeKing looks good. Thanks for the review. Scottrade advertises a lot on TV and they look good so far. ETrade I like for the all in one banking and investing features they offer. I like that quite a bit. I also like Charles Schwab due to that new credit card they have out that offers like 2% cash back rewards with no foreign currency fee charge. So basically…lots of discount brokerage firms to choose from. Will definitely have to ponder this.

By: Raymond

Raymond — Sat, 01 Aug 2009 20:14:42 +0000

Brian,

If you’re confused about the conflicting comments and opinions reflected by fellow readers in the comments section, you’re not alone. One thing I’ve learned over the years is that everyone has their own personal opinions about everything as determined by their own unique experiences. One man’s trash is another man’s treasure. One person’s favorite online discount brokerage firm may be another person’s worst nightmare.

To reach some type of reasonable consensus however, one commonly accepted way to choose from among the best is to go with professional editorial reviews. These reviewers examine financial institutions and brokerage services for a living so they are bound to have special in depth insights beyond what you or I may know.

Here’s a list of the top online brokers as voted by Smart Money magazine for 2009 – Ranked List of The Best Brokers

By: Brian

Brian — Sat, 01 Aug 2009 15:40:42 +0000

I was looking for some clarification about choosing an online broker but came away more confused than ever after reading the comments.

Guess I’ll keep researching.

By: Julie

Julie — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 19:50:48 +0000

As a person considering online trading, I find this site to be useful. Schwab is at $8.95 or $12.95 for trading (depending on your account). I have found Scottrade to be very professional as well as Schwab. I have friends that are very happy with Schwab. I found Fidelity to be ok too.

By: Richard Channell

Richard Channell — Sat, 11 Jul 2009 18:34:44 +0000

The reverse split in FAS/FAZ has caused all kinds of problems in my account with SCOTTRADE. Generally speaking, this bare bones broker is very good. Margin acct. with $2,000, $7 a trade.
The problem is they dropped the ball with the R/S. Customer service is excellent, but what good is that if I can’t trade my desired etf without calling it in (and getting charged an extra $20). They say all will be cleared up early next week, but that’s a lifetime in the trading world.
I am currently scouting other brokers.
RCB

By: drsolo

drsolo — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 17:23:20 +0000

I have an account with Scottrade and no problems. But I have been looking at stocks on global markets, specifically Hong Kong.
*Schwab .. $100 per trade or 0.5% whichever is GREATER plus Hong Kong markup 1.5%
E-trade… $38 per trade + HK cost of $7.75
NobelTrading … $19.95 (must be over the phone) + ?? HK

Anybody got anything better? thanks

By: Jack Bronstein

Jack Bronstein — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 21:17:41 +0000

I think this is not updated. No Interactive Brokers in your short list?
You gotta be kidding.

Happy trading.

By: Kevin Bailey

Kevin Bailey — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 00:01:51 +0000

TD Ameritrade charges EXTRA fess on sell trades! THEY ADVERTISE ” STRIGHT FORWARD PRICING $9.99 PER TRADE, NO HIDDEN FEES!”

These guys hide these fees, the only place you can find them is to go into reports, pull up your cost basis for any sale trade and you will see this charges in the far right hand column, the column header even states “FEE”

CAN YOU SAY DECEPTIVE ADVERTISING!

Additionally they have sever proplems filling trades, lost 2 trades in 30 days, I am no longer with them.

By: Broker Chaser

Broker Chaser — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 06:36:39 +0000

Hey looks like Smart Money’s 2009 survey list of the best online brokers has been released. From top to bottom, according to SmartMoney, here are the review rankings:

1. Etrade,
2) Fidelity
3) Charles Schwab
4) TradeKing
5) TD Ameritrade
6) Muriel Siebert
7) Scottrade
8) FirstTrade
9) Options Express
10) Bank of America

I agree with the ranked ones at the top…Etrade is pretty top notch despite the naysayers on this blog forum. Schwab and Fidelity are always decent. TradeKing deserves its high brokerage ranking as well. Main surprise is Bank of America…I had no idea they even had a brokerage department…ha!

By: Former Etrade customer

Former Etrade customer — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 16:11:04 +0000

I am also an Etrade customer with a bad experience. Etrade absolutely sucks in the customer service department. They regularly lock up accounts because they have a habit of LOSING personal documents send by mail to their offices. Their representatives have been caught lying to clients on the phone (monitored and recorder phone conversations) and have failed repeatedly to follow up on client’s requests. They have locked up funds due to their own incompetence and lost investors millions of dollars without accountability. In short, Etrade is pathetic.

Here is my advise. Do NOT go into business with Etrade. Do your research on other discount brokers. Save your money and your sanity.

By: Seabass

Seabass — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 00:46:36 +0000

TradeKing is a good broker. Low trading fees and great customer service support. I wish they’d offer lower fees for mutual funds of certain providers though…but other than that they are great. My recommendation — use TradeKing for your individual stock, index, ETF, and mutual funds trading needs…but go directly to sites like Vanguard and Fidelity if you want to purchase and invest in their branded mutual funds.