What is the most preferred online trading provider?

Question

I am interested to start in online trading and was wondering, out of so many choices out there on the web, a lot of providers offer online trading (i.e. Etrade, Charles Schwab, Fidelity, etc), so I wanted to know which one is more preferred

Answer 1

There are a lot of good brokerages depending on what you like and how you trade.

Barron's has a great article on brokerages that they publish each year. (Latest one was in March 6, 2006) Kiplinger does one too.

Here’s the link to the Barron’s article.
http://webreprints.djreprints.com/1550280182488.html

Here’s the link to the Kiplinger’s July 2006 article which isn’t bad either.
http://www.kiplinger.com/magazine/archives/2006/07/brokers.html


For basic stuff, E*Trade, Ameritrade, and Scottrade are sufficient. The people above gave their comments on them.

For more complex trades, I'd recommend Optionsxpress, ThinkorSwim, or interactivebrokers.

Based on what you put in your question, I'd recommend one of the first three, but all are very good. Cheapest probably is scottrade (of the larger online firms) depending on what and how often you trade.

Brokerages like Fidelity are horrible for anyone with any decent experience.

So, decide what's important to you as a trader and compare the brokers! You can use the article, or go to each website as they all seem to have comparison charts!

And if there are particular things that you want to mention as being most important to you (such as executions, cust svc, cheapest trade - which you mentioned, flexibility on allowing you to do certain types of trades, stop and stop limit orders, contingent orders, great graphing, what if scenarios, training, etc), I'll be glad to help discuss this with you too!

If you have any questions, let me know.

Hope that helps!

Answer 2

I agree with the 1st responder Scottrade provides a basic and inexpensive service. TD Ameritrade is a little more expensive, but the interest they pay on credit balances is pathetic. Fidelity is 3x as expensive as Scottrade. They have the best research for the money however. So a lot depends on what expactly you want. Etrade also provides good service. I believe they have several fees that are in addition to what others charge. I may be incorrect. I have personal experience with both TD Ameritrade and Fidelity. I have been satisfied with both.

Answer 3

I have been using Scottrade for quite a while with good results. I think it depends on how much interaction you want from your online trading partner. I don't use any. I also believe $7 trades is among the lowest in the industry. Good Luck!

Answer 4

For your account, you should go to Scottrade. For great investment ideas, see what the best traders are buying and selling at http://www.top10traders.com - this is a free site that lets you create a portfolio of stocks with $100,000 in "play" money. Each day the site ranks the best performing portfolios, so you can see how your picks perform compared to other investors. You can also read posts on investing from the best traders, as well as share your own investing ideas. There is also a charting feature , so you can see how your portfolio performs compared to the S&P 500.

Here are this month's best traders:

http://www.top10traders.com/Top10Standings.aspx

Good luck.

Answer 5

SCOTTRADE SCOTTRADE DID I SAY SCOTTRADE GREAT TO WORK WITH $7.00 trades...........................