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Friday, May 22, 2009

Is Discount Brokers Going to Win Your Business?

By Trading Mechanic

Want to know which stock broker is the best? Find out in the following article where I talk about the more popular options out there. Hopefully, you can find the one you are looking for below.

Etrade Financial really messed up with its mortgage division. During the past 2 years, the brokerage have been posting consecutive quarters of losses and it doesn't even have anything to do with its brokerage firm. It's really letting Charles Schwab and TD Ameritrade take its share and it's just going downhill slowly.

TD Waterhouse acquired Ameritrade to make TD Ameritrade. They also changed it to green but that's about all the changes they made. The online user interface still looks like it's from the 1990s when everything was based on command lines. I would recommend other options over this one any day.

Charles Schwab has been taking share ever since Etrade blew up with its mortgage business. It's sad to see Etrade doing so bad but at least they came up with the Etrade baby. Charles Schwab also has a neat 2% reward credit card which is great if you use them as your brokerage.

TradeKing is a smaller player in the space but it's solid. In fact, it's won many awards from the likes of Barons and Smart Money for its interface, customer support and fast execution.

Zecco has the worst marketing ever but it is one of the few broker that offers free stock trades. If you have over $25,000 or trade 25 times or more, the trades are free. Otherwise, it's $4.50 per trade.

SogoTrade is a nice option because it's $3 per trade. However, it nickel and dimes you on other things like a SEC fee (what is a SEC fee you ask? Exactly!). You may just need to run the numbers to see whether it's going to be cheaper. SogoTrade does seem to do many trades though but it doesn't seem to offer options trading.

Wells Fargo offers a trading platform in its WellsTrade as well. It's free for people with over $25,000 of combined assets with them so it's worth a look (if you have the money). My personal experience is that the platform is lacking but for retirement accounts and/or investors who don't trade often, free trades are a good alternative.

Bank of America came to the self trading platform a few years ago when it offered free stock trades for its clients who have more than $25,000 in assets with them (it could be savings, checking among others). A few years later, you don't hear much about them but I'm sure some of their customers are using them since it's free.

OptionsXpress is less known in the retail investor realm but it's very popular for frequent traders who love options. They have the best tools for options trading and they also charge three different prices for options commissions (as opposed to pricing based on the exact number of contracts). - 23212

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