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I only have about $500 to invest, and my strategy calls for frequent trades; generally penny stocks. I don't need help looking for stocks or doing much research.
I have heard good things about Foliofn, Zecco, BuyandHold, ShareBuilder, Tradeking, and optionsXpress. Are any of these right for me?

2007-06-23 08:30:16 · 5 answers · asked by David A 1 in Business & Finance Investing

5 answers

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.

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). 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

2007-06-27 05:14:20 · answer #1 · answered by Yada Yada Yada 7 · 0 0

If you plan on trading frequently, then zecco (which is apparently free, at least for the first 30 trades) would be the way to go. I don't use Zecco, and I don't know if they'd have any hidden fees that might foul you up. Essentially with little money and high turnaround you want cheap/no comissions.

2007-06-24 04:38:53 · answer #2 · answered by Adam J 6 · 0 0

If you are trading penny stock, the one thing you need to be sure to look for is whether the broker adds on an additional charge for stocks under $1. If your stock is barely under a dollar it won't be a big deal, maybe a percent or two, but if you are trading subpennies it can double your cost, which means even if you get 100% gains you aren't making money.

I use TD Ameritrade for my penny stock trading. Ten dollars per trade. The only complaint I have about them is that they will unaccountably decide that a particular stock is unavailable and you can't buy it. No pattern that I can tell; sometimes the stock goes up, sometimes it tanks.

2007-06-25 03:59:45 · answer #3 · answered by Daytrader Anne 1 · 0 0

.
If you're into penny stocks forget FolioFN as you can't trade them if they're not on a major exchange.

I think FOLIOFN is great and I'm happy with their service. $20/month for 200 window trades or $3.50/trade and make 4 trades a QUARTER to avoid a $14.95/quarterly fee. NO MINIMUM amount is required to open/start or maintain the account.

There are no commissions, optional dividend auto-reinvestment for dividends of $1 or more is free. You may purchase fractional shares and dollar-cost invest by weight, market cap etc, auto-rebalance. A variety of ways to fund your account, including electronic transfer from a bank account.

Best wishes,
pup
.

2007-06-23 16:52:31 · answer #4 · answered by . 6 · 0 0

try zecco. i have used for for 2 month with 30 free trade. without any problem

2007-06-24 20:00:06 · answer #5 · answered by MikeMIke 2 · 0 0

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