Best online broker for investing into stocks?

[Joony]

ameritrade?

I want to invest about $200 into a few penny stocks or something 🙂

heh, maybe Nortel too

how do these places accept payment?

 

[DaiShan]

I use Ameritrade, I have it set up to directly take from my bank account, and deposit cash there when I desire. Fees are $10 a trade, and the basic level charts are decent. If I might make a recommendation...why don't you try to save some money each month then when you get to $1000 invest? Brokerage fees on 200 comes to 10% on buy/sell so you have to outperform 10% in the time period to make a profit, also penny stocks tend to be very short term holds so your fees would quickly add up, you might consider something more long term. Just a suggestion.

/edit you can also fund via money order and direct wire, their CS is pretty good too, I had a discrepency where they tried to take the money out of my savings when I specified checking which meant that they couldn't withdraw the money and as such my positions were subject to sale at my loss, I called them up to see what in the hell they were doing, they said that it was their mistake but I still had to wire the money to them (my bank charges fees) to cover to positions within 48 hours, so I got the info and at the end of the conversation I told the CSR that I was going to be charged fees by my bank to wire the money and that I should not be responsible for their mistake, the guy agreed and offered me 15 free trades (the fees were like $7 total) so I graciously accepted and got the money wired within 1 hour. (Most of that time was me taking the wire form to a copy shop so I could fax it to my bank so they could more quickly get the money wired)

 

[UTmtnbiker]

I'm a big fan of Scottrade. No inactivity fees, no maintenance fees. Basically no fees at all except for trades. I was with both Morgan Stanley and TD Waterhouse. Talk about nickel and diming you to death, especially if you're not a frequent and/or large trader. I switched earlier this year and can't be happier. $7 market trades which is great. Only thing is you may not get the breadth of research you'd get with a full service broker.

<Shameless plug>
Let me know if you want to go with them...I have a referral code you can have to give you your first 3 trades for free.
</Shameless plug>

 

[Joony]

do do all online brokers charge brokerage fees? I thought it was only a trade fee 🙁

 

[amdforever2]

E*Trade

 

[DaveSimmons]

All charge a fee for each trade, most have monthly or quarterly maintenance fees they charge if you don't make enough trades or keep enough assets invested through them.

Last I checked, etrade required $5K invested with them to avoid fees, schwab is $50K. Others are anywhere in between, though UTmtnbiker says there is no minimum at Scottrade to avoid fees.

With just $200 you might as well go to INGDirect and get their zero-risk 2.1% interest.

 

[Joony]

so, from what you people are saying, Scottrade seems to be good for me, what are the disadvantages? Nothing is perfect 🙂

 

[TwoBills]

Originally posted by: Joony
so, from what you people are saying, Scottrade seems to be good for me, what are the disadvantages? Nothing is perfect 🙂

I think you need a minimum of $500 to open a Scottrade acct. Otherwise, that would be the broker to use.

 

[Dissipate]

With just $200 you should go with Share Builder.. Very low trade fees, and no minimum balance. Heck, awhile back I opened an account on there with just $100.

 

[Argo]

Ameritrade will charge you a quarterly fee if you have bellow $2000 in your account. E-trade will charge you a quarterly fee if you make below certain number of transactions per quarter. Your best shot at no maintainance fees would be ScottTrade.

 

[WannaFly]

I use empire financial and get charged no fees and only have about $100 of stock left there. Things might've changed because my account like like 8 years old but if not, look into them.

 

[JCE10]

Originally posted by: Dissipate
With just $200 you should go with Share Builder.. Very low trade fees, and no minimum balance. Heck, awhile back I opened an account on there with just $100.

Do they have any maintenance fees?

 

[Argo]

Ameritrade and E-trade have maintenance fees. With ameritrade you got to have at least $2000 (maybe even 3k) invested. With e-trade you have to make certain number of trades per quarter.

 

[OMG1Penguin]

I <3 ameritrade, but 2k is the min balance for non-IRA (1k is min for IRA's)

 

[SuperTool]

Scottrade is the best.
Much better than E-trade, and has local branches.