Best Online Broker?
 

I was just wondering if many of you had experience with online brokers, and which you would recommend as the best?

I'm not looking to move a huge amount of money so a fairly low commission would be nice. Etrade is $20 each way, Ameritrade is $11. There's one called Scottrade that's only $7, and Fidelity is $8.

Why such a big price gap - does it make a big difference which one I choose? Are there big differences in terms of the services they offer?

I use Interactive Brokers. It doesn't have all of the bells and whistles that E*Trade and Ameritrade do, but it does have dirt-cheap commisions and really good, fast executions. It costs a penny a share to trade a stock if you trade under 500 shares. Over 500 shares it goes down to half a penny a share. Each trade is a minimum of a dollar. That means say you trade 50 shares, then you don't pay 50 cents. You pay a dollar. Another cool thing about IB is that their software includes your commision in its cost-basis display. It seems like their data-feed used to be pretty iffy. It would stop updating at random I don't know at least once a week or more. Lately (the past 3 months or so) I haven't ever noticed that happening. I don't day-trade so that never has been a big problem for me, so I might not really be noticing how often it happens.

You might consider using sharebuilder.com. I reccomend it to my fee only clients, and it works better than most online services. Sharebuilder.com charges per stock in your account - if you have 4 stocks, you pay something like $28 a month - but you have unlimited trades between cash and those 4 stocks. I think the more stocks, mutual funds, etc, the cheaper you pay per stock.

I like Ameritrade. I was with Etrade years ago and cancelled the account do to some pretty crazy fees.

Been there, done that. I left ETrade totally pissed off over feeling gouged. I'm with AMTD now and satisfied with the service and fees. The Apex level service, if you qualify, is quite good.

does anyone use the refco system?
I've looked at it for currencies - but want to know how well it does for other markets.

I have look into refco before but only briefly because I'm a Victor Adair fan. harhar.

I've used Scottrade for my IRA - no transaction fees. Most other brokers charge you to buy/sell securities in an IRA - unless you're with Fidelity and it's a Fidelity product. However, even they are offering "no fee" trades for many other funds.

If you're starting out with investing and don't have much money, there's no sense playing the stock trading gamble. OK, you invest $500 and sell for $550. It may be a decent percentage gain but you didn't turn $500 into $5000. Start with mutual funds or check out Sharebuilder or BuyAndHold and get some of the Index stocks like Spiders, Diamonds, etc.

I've used Scottrade for a number of years. They have very reasonable commissions and their customer service has been great. Plus you don't get hit with surprise fees (E-Trade!)

Been with Schwab for 15 years. Not the cheapest, but never had a problem. Always able to access my account on-line or talk to a real person. I also use their Street Smart Pro software

Ameritrade is just plain wonderful. They are supposed to be updating their already easy to use interface which is an additional treat. Comission is also very reasonable. Fidelity offers 8 bucks a trade only to really active and rich traders which I would assume you are not. Not to be offensive, it's just that their requirements are nuts. (You have to read the fine print.) My aunt recommened Fidelity because they have 8 dollar trades, then I found out that to qualify for this comission price, you need either:

1,000,000+$ in assets

or

30,000+$ in assets and 120+ trades per year

Ameritrade all the way!

Sharebuilder is nice so far. I've been using it for a month. $4 trades. or you can get a monthly rate.

I would tell anyone to go for Scottrade, cheap and reliable...I have traded over a year with them with no complaints.

I've had good luck with Ameritrade. Cheap and fast!

Scottrade is the way to go

Ameritrade has been pretty good so far. I signed up and got free trades (up to 30) for the first 30 days. This would be a good idea for anyone looking for something long term. After this initial 30 days you pay $11 per trade...still relatively cheap. I recommend Ameritrade.