On-line brokers? best and worst?

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 though the 2007 article “just” came out). Kiplinger does one too.

Here’s the link to the 2006 Barron’s article.
http://webreprints.djreprints.com/1550280182488.html

Here’s the link to the new Barron’s 2007 – Best online Brokers 3/5/07
http://online.barrons.com/public/article/SB117288684364425609-wsYkdd74F9ukYSQgQJifDpHYwsY_20070402.html?mod=mktw

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. For more complex trades, I'd recommend Optionsxpress, ThinkorSwim, or interactivebrokers. Those are by far the top of the industry.

Based on what you put in your question, I'd recommend one of the first three if you´re starting out, but all are very good. Cheapest probably is scottrade (of the larger online firms). Yes there are cheaper like interactivebrokers, but you'll have to get used to their software based platform (which is doable). They're only about $1/contract on options!

Brokerages like Fidelity are horrible for anyone with any decent experience. They can do basic buy and sell orders, but beyond that, they’ve got to be one of the worst “top” brokers out there. Not only are most of their customer service staff ignorant in what many transactions are, but their fills are usually slow, the statements are unusable (based on “last transaction vs. current conditions!!!), and they take forever to resolve any issues. That said, for BASIC buy and sell orders, they’re not too bad. It’s just a matter if you want to be with a broker that can grow with your 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!

P.S. I just found a link to a review of reviews as well! Here it is:
http://www.consumersearch.com/www/internet/online-brokers/reviews.html

Motley fool also does a small comparison of the “cheap” firms. Here’s that link.

http://www.fool.com/dbc/tables/compare.htm?source=ifldbcdbx0000001

Answer 2

Depends what you're looking for. A few months back Barron's did an article on the "best" brokers.

#1 in Web based was TD Ameritrade
#1 in Software based is ThinkOrSwim.com

I use Schwab & ThinkOrSwim. I did use Scottrade, best advantage with them is the price. I use ThinkOrSwim for trading (better tools, featurers and conditional orders). Great PROPHET graphs. Very good tools for Options. Great service. Truly the best broker "tuned" to the needs of the trader.

Schwab is good for research & especially good for "newbes".

I have no experiance with TD Waterhouse.

Answer 3

It depends on a couple of things.

I'm an active trader at Schwab (placing more than 30 trades/calendar quarter or 120 trades/year), and I REALLY like their StreetSmart Pro trading platform which is available to me for free. It offers some great real-time screening and charting tools. HOWEVER, for regular traders who don't trade that often, I'm less than thrilled with the standard Schwab website. While they've made some improvements recently, it's still got a way to go to compete with some of the others. One thing I will say for Schwab is that I've ALWAYS received excellent customer service from anyone I've talked with on the phone.

If you're wanting to do options trading, I'd recommend OptionsXpress.com. The commissions are a little higher than some other places, but they make it easy to research and execute advanced options strategies. In addition, they provide a virtual trading feature that allows you to do paper trading. (You can even set up an account and paper trade prior to funding the account.)

Answer 4

I liked the 1st responer's answer but I wished he would have elaborated on his rankings. I use Fidelity and they are good. I also use TD Ameritrade and my only complaint is that they pay very very little on cash balances. Their research material is not as extensive as that of Fidelity and they charge for T-bill auction purchases. Fidelity does not. However, they could both use improvement.

Answer 5

I use Scottrade and like it a lot. Only one gripe is that it takes a few days to fund your account (unless you go directly to their office). Other than that, they meet my needs completely and are very cheap.

Answer 6

In decending order, based on my experience...
Fidelity-Superb
Schwab-Excellent
Scottrade-Very Good
Etrade-Good
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