Considering Opening a Scott Trade Account... Any advice?

Question

Let me preface by my previous experiance.

I opened an E*Trade Account several years ago with the minimum $1000..

I bought 100 shares of HASBRO @ around 7.50 a share and 100 shares of SPACEHAB @ around 3.00 a share...

The Space Hab stock tanked, and my account 'value' dropped below $1000... at which point E*Trade started charging me $25 a quarter, decreasing my account balance even futher... I eventually cashed out my account and got about 600$ after having E*Trade take 250$ in fees from me.

I was not happy and I have not invested since then.

Now I am married and I am looking to open a stock account again, I do not mind high 'per-trade fees' but I am not willing to pay account maintanance or other 'add on' fees to make someone else rich...

I am not a 'constant trader' and I can do my own research... I just want to buy several stocks, hold on to them for a while (1 to 12+ months) sell them, buy more, and later take out some of the money.

Scott has a $500 min deposit.

... and I would be starting with that and depositing $50 a month into the account after that...

I just dont want to get 'fee'd' to death as a very small time investor.

Any advice?

Answer 1

I use scottrade since 2003 and have had no problems with them. I havent bought any stocks since february and no charges or anything. infact when I first opened the account I did not buy any stocks for 2 months and they gave me 1 cent interest for the money I had in the account. They are cheap when it comes to buying stocks but one thing I dont like about them is they suck when it comes to penny stock. lets say you bought penny stock that were valued at 50 dollars all together, they will charge you the 50 bucks for the stocks, the fee for the trade plus 50% the value of the stock, so you pay them 25 bucks extra simply because they are penny stock. Other than that I like the account.

Answer 2

I've used Scottrade for quite a few years and have been pretty pleased with their service. I have noticed that in some of the smaller stocks it can take a little longer to fill an order due to less liquidity, but overall their execution has been pretty good and probably has improved. Most trades I perform now are executed within about 10 seconds. Their commission is $7 per trade (market or limit order). They also don't charge inactive account fees. I would suggest you open the account just so you can perform research on stocks and funds as well. You also can become familiar with their website. I would however suggest that you NOT start investing in stocks until accumulate quite a bit more money in your account. I would suggest a bare minimum of $4-$5K, and $10-15K would be far better. You will find it difficult to be diversified without a significant sum in your account and trading smaller amounts of stock too often will eat into your profits.

Answer 3

Scottrade is attractive with no account maintenance and activity fees along with only $7/trade. But I always found the trade execution poor compared to other brokers. I once had the same, small order in a semi-liquid stock put in at the same time as a friend. We placed the orders in at 10:10am. He was filled at 10:12am, while I wasn't filled until 10:38am. Mind you there were limits on the market which could have filled my order. So I would not go with Scottrade because of execution. One single fault with trade execution would eclipse the $25 quarter fee of a broker, depending on trade size.

Instead, I would recommend TD Ameritrade. You get 15 free trades when opening an account of $2000 or more. They charge $10/trade, but the execution is one of the best I have seen. My friend that filled nearly right away used Ameritrade before the merger. As far as I have seen, no account maintenance or activity fees. They offer a lot more services as well and have good customer service (rare that a broker does). For example, a call to E-trade may take anywhere from 30 mins to 90 mins...yes it does. All the while TD Ameritrade takes 2 to 5 mins. Also, if you trade somewhat often, you may qualify for Apex--reduced prices on trades.

Rather

Answer 4

To begin with, you shouldn't be Investing in individual stocks unless you have a minimum of $50K ($100K better) because tiny little transactions will eat you alive in trade ticket costs (what percentage of $1000 does $60 round trip (buy and sale) eat up?)

Also it is an extremely risky undertaking to not be well diversified. This means stocks from companies in different industries, of different sizes and both value and growth type stocks. You just can't do that with smaller sums of cash.

Your BEST bet is to begin to invest regularly in diversified mutual funds and this can be done with just a few hundred dollars to start. Pick a no load like those from T Rowe Price (and yes, there are other good companies, visit Morningstar.com) and very little of your investment dollar will get eaten up by fees which means more of your money will grow for you and you don't have to assume a lot oof unnecessary risk just to break even.

Now..if you are really determined to buy stocks, check out sharebuilder.com. They will let you buy fractional shares and trading costs are very low (just a few dollars a transaction). It is better for the long term investor as they pick the actual time of execution but this approach solves both of the serious problems of stock portfolios for small investors - the ability to diversify AND trading fees that consume too large a portion of your investment.

BTW...you should probably consider purchasing your stock within an IRA (retirement) account, Roth IRA if you qualify. Why? Because the money grows tax free for retirement and no matter how young you are, you will need tons of money to retire so starting early is GOOD. Plus there's no tax bite when you buy and sell your holdings.

Reducing unnecessary fees is VERY HUGE when it gets down to your ultimate net return and how fast your money grows.

Answer 5

I use TD ameritrade.

But consider this please: You bought 100shares of a $300 stock. If you paid $10 to buy and $10 to sell. You are $20 in the hole already. You need to make 6.6% before you are even. You need to make 11% before you get even close to making CD rates...AND as you have discovered, you are at risk...where with a CD you are not.

Investing can be fun, but it is really about making money.

I would wait until you have $2,000 together before you invest in a brokerage account and buy one stock with it...this way you only need to make 1% before you are even.

If you don't like the risk of $2K in one stock...do mutual funds until you can build up a little more capital...

Just a little advice.

Answer 6

Go to www.cititrade.com. They do not charge a "annual fee" for IRA or regular brokerage accounts. If you are buying no-load mututal funds, they their is not trading cost as well. And, unlike Fidelity, you can buy any no-load mutual funds.

They can make it easy to transfer you account over from etrade.

Answer 7

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Here
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Have fun..
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Answer 8

i'd propose no longer procuring and promoting overseas money. you're just about absolute to lose money. Your broking service will make effective you're making money on the first commerce, then another commerce will be on the whim of the marketplace. positioned you money in small-cap stocks in the previous overseas money, except obviously you've an aspect over distinctive the most notably paid and appropriate human beings in the international.

Answer 9

Check to see if you have a Scottrade in you city plus they have no fees.

Answer 10

have you compare with other stock broker?

I had etrade but dropped out.