best online brokerage sites

[Niketennis1]

What is the best site for me to use to buy and sell stocks and options? So far, I like E-trade, Scottrade, and sharebuilder the best. I'm thinking about going with E-trade or Scottrade though because options are cheaper with those 2. Scottrade lets you buy stocks with limits, while sharebuilder charges you $15 to limit order which I find to be a major rip-off. E-trade lets you get your first 100 trades free (1st month). Please give me some great idea on which site you like better and why?

[cryder17]

Think or swim

-prophet charts (awesome functionality)
- no level restrictions on options trading for $3 contracts (i pay $1.50 for being an investools subscriber)
-$5 - $7.99 stock trades. they have a variable rate that you can choose
- use of shadowtrader radio (a TA radio guy that comments on the market as things are happening and gives heads up for changing/continueing trends. i listen to him everyday as i am trading
- easy to use buy and sell ordering systems for options and stocks
- awesome analysis tools for option valuation and predicted price outlooks
- they send you a check for $39.95 if you execute more than 40 trades a month, so this can lower the overall commision rate you pay.

[AJLightning]

Scottrade
$7 trades...endless research tools

[cryder17]

hehe, i came from scottrade

[Niketennis1]

my boss at work told me to use e-trade but scottrade seems like a better deal?

[Oldedit]

E-trade's signup process is so screwed up that when it tried to make me do forms over three times, I decided to go to ThinkorSwim. I was trying to upgrade my trading privileges at E-Trade, and their system is just so frustrating. TOS was easy, relatively speaking, given all the legal forms you have to process to open an account.

Having said that, it is much easier to learn E-Trade's trade screens, not including their power trade screen, which would have cost me an extra $1,800 a year. I never tried that. E-Trade gives moderately active accounts real time quotes and streaming quotes if you have enough money in the account.

ThinkorSwim's trade screen is very complicated for newbies. They have excellent training videos, and I've watched a lot of them. Then, being dumb, I've had to get online live chat help to learn how to place orders. There are no manuals that I know of.

Once you get the hang of it, the system is slick. It provides a lot of data options traders want, such as the greeks, historical and implied volatility, charts of the latter, and position info on spreads, etc.

TOS also offers one-hour seminars or chat sesssions on Wed afternoons. I had to use my iMac to get into the session.

That's another thing about TOS, you can download their software or use web based trading, using either the latest Mac OS10. 4.9 or Windows XP or Vista. I'm using XP because I haven't bothered to upgrade to Tiger on the Mac.

E-Trade also is easy to use on the Mac.

I'm getting the feeling that I'm getting better and quicker fills on TOS, but I'm trading covered call buy rights in nearby months, which are more liquid than the leaps.

What I miss in TOS is the ability to scan for stocks by HV, IV, and various financial criteria. The best scanner I've found for fundamentals is at Morningstar.com for premium members.

E-Trade offers some good free fundamental research from independent sources. So I'll keep a couple of accounts there while trading options and futures at TOS.

[signature1]

What do you think of TradeKing and Firsttrade. I am in high school and I am funding my portfolio with a summer job. The $5 trades at TradeKing are almost to good to pass up.

[jrstafford1]

Ok, based on this discussion I'm considering TOS or Scottrade. Pros and cons of each? On the surface Scottrade seems a bit more user friendly.

Thanks!

[Student]

I use AmeriTrade [$7-per-trade for me] and TradeKing [$5-per-Stock/ETF trade] and Zecco.com [1st 40 stock/ETF trades-per-month are completely FREE! Then they cost $3-per-trade 'til the beginning of the next month, when you get 40 free trades again, every month]. The sophistication of each site is pretty much commensurate on the cost-per-trade [i.e. higher price=better site]. But if you are willing to use free stock info. sites for stock info., like Yahoo! Financial [I'm signed up for real-time streaming quotes, analysis, etc.for $109/year on Yahoo! Finance and it's worth every penney] then you can just make your trades on Zecco's site. I use all 3 sites. Only AmeriTrade.com has Trade Triggers which are advanced enough to be useful. Please let me know if I may be of further assistance to you or to anyone else. Warm regards, Student

[jrstafford1]

I've been using several other sites to do my research anyway, so I will look further into TradeKing and Zecco. Thanks for the info!