Buying stocks. Which online site is the best?

[HeroOfPellinor]

Obviously I know "best" is subjective, but that's on purpose as I'd like to hear some opinions on what makes an online brokerage good.

Right now I'm thinking Ameritrade or Scottrade or Sharebuilder. This would just be to play with a few K right now.

 

[robothouse77]

scottrade?

 

[swimscubasteve]

i use scottrade, used to use ameritrade

 

[vi edit]

Just remember with the ultra discount brokers (Scottrade, Firstrade, ect) you are getting lower commissions in exchange for lower access to customer support.

With Ameritrade and the other slightly more expensive brokers, you can talk to somebody 24/7 if you need to go over an account.

I looked at Firsttrade because they were cheap, but I could never manage to free up time to get ahold of them. They only staffed the phones M-F like 7:00AM-5:00PM EST. Not that convenient for other time zones if you had to address a concern.

But if you never want to call about anything, or can do it during the day easily, that's not a major concern.

 

[crownjules]

Interactive Brokers has absolute rock bottom comissions and gives you the ability to trade on any exchange in the world, if you're into that. Comissions are $.005/share, minimum of $1 a trade. Phone support is 9am-8pm eastern (for the US). They came highly recommended to me and I have just opened up my account for day trading futures.