2007-02-02 01:42:07 · 6 answers · asked by Anonymous in Business & Finance ➔ Investing
Scottrade. (If you have less than $2,000.00 USD)
2007-02-02 07:19:32 · answer #1 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 1⤋
There is no one size fits all for brokerage firms as it all depends on what you are looking for (sort of like buying a house).
Generally here are the important things:
Are you looking for a full service firm, one that holds your hand, gives you advice, and will even place your trades for you? If so then it's going to cost you 30-100 times more than you would pay if you did all of this yourself.
Do you need the best charting package? If so then go with TradeStation or CyberTrader but you'll have to either A.) Pay a monthly fee for the charting platform (usually $100-150/month) or B.) Trade a whole lot so that you are exempt from this requirement
Do you want the cheapest commissions/cost with great service & trading platform support? Look into InteractiveBrokers
Do you want to do your own research on brokerage firms instead of blindly taking mine or someone else's advice here?
Go to http://www.EliteTrader.com , sign up for a free account and go to their Brokerage Review section. There you will find in depth reviews of every brokerage company available as rated by the thousands of professional traders who are members of the site.
Here are the brokerages I have personally worked with:
MB Trading, Scottrade, Interactive Brokers, TradeStation, & RML Trading.
By far the best for me, just because of the super low cost of $.005/share, was Interactive Brokers. But when I was trading futures full time, far and away TradeStation had and has the best charting platform on the markets, but I would use them for charts only, not as a brokerage to place trades with.
Hope this helps
2007-02-02 10:03:50 · answer #2 · answered by blachjakk 1 · 1⤊ 0⤋
It all depends on what you are looking for. A lot of on-line firms have many trading features that some people absolutely love, but mean nothing to others. If you're looking for a firm that does it all -brokerage, bank, mortgage, etc, I know E*trade has is one of the best around (their customer service needs some fine tuning - but very good otherwise)....but you really need to see which best matches your style and needs!
2007-02-02 10:26:00 · answer #3 · answered by dashel_gabelli 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Of course the best way to find out is to experience them all by yourself (with minimal (!) funds deposit for a security reason) and do not follow advices of others reviews as everyone has different tastes, financial position, opportunities, demands, knowledges, strategy tactics, etc. But also a very efficient way is to open a demo account with virtual money (as far as I'm concerned all broker companies provide this service free of charge) and learn the trading options. For instance, you may freely download MT4 terminal and open a demo account here: http://www.realtrade.lv/rtsetup/rt4setup.exe
2007-02-02 10:51:47 · answer #4 · answered by QT 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Been there - done that. Happiest I have been with my investments is when I went in person to Edward Jones. I am finally making money - not paying out monthly fees to watch my money drop. You need a real person that is knowledgeable and that you can talk to about your investment goals and plans.
2007-02-02 09:46:50 · answer #5 · answered by Monkey Lips 4 · 0⤊ 0⤋
For customer service, it would be Fidelity.
Do not go with Schwab, they are terrible.
2007-02-02 12:49:28 · answer #6 · answered by roger_v_kint 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋