How Do You Trade?

[Rod]

And WHY???

ETrade?

Scott Trade?

TD Ameritrade?

Fidelity?

Share Builder?


I know there's a ton more, but these come to mind.

[Show-me]

Scottrade. Spaf told me about them and they are based out of Missouri and no inactivity fee, no annual fee, and $7 trades. Everything was easy to set up or change either on the phone or online.

[Bullitt]

Scottrade. I've got a local office nearby in case I need to meet with an actual human being. Also $7 trades was a factor. Those commissions add up. At the time I signed up, their charting service was horrible, but now it's pretty good. Once you get to $25K, you can get Nasdaq level II quotes. Helps you get an idea where the money's going as long as the market maker isn't playing games.

My only problem's with Scottrade are that it takes 3 business days to transfer money to your account. If you initiate the transfer on Sunday, cash will be ready to trade on Wednesday. Also, not much motivation to keep cash levels too high as you only earn like 1% in their money market account.

[CountryBoy]

I use Sharebuilder for mine and My wife’s Roths. It fits my needs, because I mainly purchase stocks with consistent dividends and yields, although I have a couple of 3 that I look for share value growth (BHP, SLB, DSX). Plus if I want to make a real time trade, I can, but I mainly want stocks that will give me the divvies in the future. My stocks are mainly long term investments.

CB

[Spaf]

My personal pick was Scottrade.

Reasons:
1. They have a good reputation.
2. All market and limit orders are just $7 for unlimited shares. They have real time reasearch and news. There are 3 available trading platforms, 1 is free. And, you only need $500 to open an account.
3. ST is said to rank the highest in customer satisfaction. They have 330 local service centers to help customers.

[ayla]

I agree about Scott Trade. I've been researching brokers on the web and Scott Trade has a great reputation. Haven't heard anything bad about their customer service though there are numerous complaints about the low rate of interest (1%) they give you for your cash balance.

[Spaf]

Don't know about the complaints for low interest in cash accounts.
My rough figures:
The G-fund pays about 1.6% per month.
Scottrade pays about 1.2% per month.

[wv-girl]

Is the weather getting better in your neck of the woods?

[Oldcoin]

I’ve been using the Wells Fargo brokerage account. If you have a PMA account with them, there are no annual fees and I get 100 free trades a year, after that I think it’s around $5.95 or $6.95 per trade. I have yet to use up all my 100 free trades. So far no problems.

[Birchtree]

I may be changing my Merrill account to Wells Fargo in the near future.

[TSPinWV]

I recently ran across this article that provides detailed comparisons of Premium, Full-Service and Discount Brokers.
http://www.smartmoney.com/brokers/

It might be of benefit to someone.

[Hallatauer]

I don't trade.. I invest. I use Scottrade btw.

I don't trade with my TSP either... I make Interfund Transfers. :)