Datek Online vs. Ameritrade

[rewap]

Anyone have any experience with either of those companies? I'm looking for a good online broker to do casual trading here and there. Ameritrade is cheaper than Datek per trade, but Ameritrade seems to have a lot of 'hidden fees.' I'm also open to suggestions to other brokers. Please post any experience, good or bad. Thanks.

 

[monto]

dunno bout ameritrade, but i, my parents, and many friends have used datek and have been pretty satisfied

do you see yourself day trading in this day and age? the fee/trade shouldn't be that much of a factor if not

 

[PsychoAndy]

IMHO, they both stink. I like preferred trade. make it one word and add .com and you can figure out the rest

 

[wedi42]

check out www.scottrade.com
they are cheap, and have an office near me
you can sign up in person, hand the check to a real person
thats kinda cool

 

[spanky]

datek all the way man!

 

[rewap]

monto: I'm not planning on doing any serious trading now. I just want to have some fun, like playing $20 at a slot machine in Vegas.

johngute: That site is too poorly coded for me to trust my money with them.

 

[fr]

Check out Gomez. They have ratings of various brokerages.

http://www.gomez.com/indexCom.asp

 

[rewap]

bump for more opinions

 

[yoyo25]

<< monto: I'm not planning on doing any serious trading now. I just want to have some fun, like playing $20 at a slot machine in Vegas.

johngute: That site is too poorly coded for me to trust my money with them. >>



You would be suprised how lucky you can get with little money....after trying to use up all of my money on my portfolio, I had about $580 left, and did not think it would be worth investing because it would be pretty hard to clear margins and make a profit. I decided, what the hell, and bought 29 shares of juniper networks at $20, it went up to like $26 i think this past week and made me around $150 or so.

 

[Zipp]

Datek is pretty good but I was surprised to see inactivity fee of $15.00 due to the fact that I've havn't traded that many stocks in the last quater and my account is just fell below there minium level which is 5k. I guess its a new policy.