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Tuesday, May 12, 2009

Inside Look at Brokerage Firm

By Trading Mechanic

There are tons of stock brokers on the market but who's the best? Here's a summary of the more popular options and what I think of them.

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 Ameritrade is also an early player and it's main competition is Charles Schwab and Etrade. They have good advertising but the interface isn't great and support is okay mediocre. However, they do have a solid following and trades are $9.99 no matter how much you trade or have with them.

Charles Schwab is a full fledge solution like Etrade (they offer a bank, client services as well as credit cards along with their trading platform). Ever since Etrade went into trouble with its mortgage business, Charles Schwab have been on fire, taking market share and everything else.

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 used to offer everyone free stock trades but if you don't have $25,000 or trade 25 or more times a month, you need to pay $4.50 per trade. Options are $0.50 per contract which is a good price though, and it also has Zecco Forex where you can trade currencies.

Sogotrade is a relatively new player and it plays the angle of cheap trades. With $3 per trade, it's hard to beat unless everything is just free. Sogotrade also ensures trading accounts for up to $5 million.

Wells Fargo offers free trades for those that have at least $25k with them. This is the good news. The interface isn't so great but it works. Can't complain when it's free right?

Bank of America basically has the same offering as Wells Fargo. It matches them with the free stock trades with the same conditions ($25k minimum to qualify for the free trades). I wouldn't be surprised that they will change something though after they set their feet and start integrating with Merrill Lynch though.

OptionsXpress has a weird name because it's not just a options house. It's not the cheapest and it's not the bigger. Everything is just middle of the pack but then if you are into options, they have the most comprehensive tools. - 23162

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