Do any of you use an online broker to trade stuff on? Like Fidelity, Ameritrade, eTrade, etc.? I’m thinking of opening one and I was just wondering if anyone has had experience with them and what the pros/cons of the different companies are.
I use OptionsXPress and love the platform. The commissions are a little steep if you are a short-term trader, but it has good customer service, quotes, charts, and platform. I hear good things also about TD.
kant, do you have an advisor or something?
I’ve been wanting to do InteractiveBrokers, but don’t have enough trading experience to qualify yet (and don’t feel like lying on something that could be checked so easily if someone wanted to, even though the Interactive Brokers guys don’t care, so long as they cover their legal butts). I’ve also been looking at TradeKing, which does Stocks, ETFs, Mutual Funds, Bonds, and Options. $5/trade. Not quite as cheap as IB, but I think they have lower experience requirements. No futures, which sucks if you are trying to do an overlay, but my account size is not all that large, so futures might be a bit impractical anyway. Who is VirginCFAHooker using for his/her portfolio?
Bchadwick… My brother uses InteractiveBrokers all the time. Its great, commission is ~ a half cent per share, or 1 cent round trip. He lost his job after he signed up, but has been asking IB’s permission to trade other securities and IB rarely checks his creditworthiness. They offer extremely quick trade time compared to the eTrades of the world, plus they offer far more support and analysis. Highly recommend it if you have any skill and are anyway serious about trading.
Frank, I don’t have an advisor. I just want to open up an account so I can put in some money and just do some random stuff and learn about the market, trading, options, etc. It’s more for me to learn how to do things. So I guess I’m looking for something with low commissions and a customer service desk/software platform that is conducive to learning. I was looking at etrade just because it seems to allow you to do so much. The commissions are really steep though and I don’t know much about their customer service. What do you guys think about forex?
Forex has always sounded interesting to me, but remember, forex is a 24 hour market, with traders at banks around the globe positioned to take advantage of their time zones. Trade forex and things can blow up on you literally while you sleep. If you’re just getting started, I’d probably stay away from forex, unless you are using it to hedge something else, in which case you’re usually taking a more long-term view.
mto1985 Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Its great, commission is ~ a half cent per share, > or 1 cent round trip. > > They offer extremely quick trade time compared to > the eTrades of the world, plus they offer far more > support and analysis. Highly recommend it if you > have any skill and are anyway serious about > trading. 100% agree with this guy. Interactive Brokers is hands down the best.
HedgeStreet allows you to trade binary options and some futures, taking inexpensive positions. I’m thinking of just signing up, making 50 futures trades and 50 offsetting futures trades, and then telling IB I’ve done at least 100 futures trades so that I’m not lying on their form. Of course, it will cost $100 in transaction costs (at $1 per future), but that may be a small price for integrity. You can do the same thing with options too, because, hey, they never ask if you’re experienced with puts and calls - you’re doing binary options, which make you an “exotic” options trader (tongue in cheek).
IB is good on the surface but be careful. Fees for quotes, money transfers, and additional nickels and dimes can add up if you’re not paying attention. Just a different fee structure than most brokers, being nearly 100% variable with whatever you’re actually trading.
thinkorswim (TDA) has the best platform if you’re looking to do a mix of options, futures, forex, and stock trading. Can negotiate a commission if you call up.
I don’t think any of these online brokers do credit checks unless you’re looking to get into portfolio margin (you’d know if you were). Forms are CYA for the firms. That’s it.
I use thinkorswim. I love it. My friend, who day trades oil futures for a living, got me started on it when I was just learning. He uses it because you can alter the coding of current studies or even completly write your own programs from scratch. I use some of his custom studies in my own trading. Great platform in general too (just google live trading session videos and you can see how much better the TOS platform is compaired to others). They start you at crap $10 trades but you just call them and they work it down. I currently have 1.50/contract options which is sweet.
Can the mods remove these posts and ban this account? They have 2 posts and are clearly spamming the boards as they are avertising their crap site.
I guess that explains why they revived a 7 year old thread…
I’ll bring this up, but won’t delete the posts just yet so we can track the name before we drown Ophelia.