Comparison of brokerage accounts?
111542
every year all the major financial magazines do a brokerage comparison. Smartmoney, Money Mag, Barrons, etc.\n\nthey usually give a great review. I could give you some pointers, but you did not provide any details.
824323
I've been with Scottrade for about ten years now... and I believe they are the best discount brokerage available.  You'll pay just $7 a trade.  You'll have resources to explore.  You can even get advice from one of their brokers, which will result in a small fee.  Bottom line: Take it from a retired stock broker... if I could invest at a better company, I'd do it!
881603
There are a lot of good brokererages depending on what you like and how you trade.\n\nBarron's Online has a great article on brokerages that they publish each year. (I'll try to find you the link for the March 6,2006 article)\n\nFor basic stuff, E*Trade, Ameritrade, and Scottrade are sufficient. For more complex trades, I'd recommend Optionsxpress, ThinkorSwim, or interactivebrokers. \n\nBased on what you put in your question on wanting affordable w/o inactivity fees, I'd recommend optionsxpress since they have no minimum activity that you're required to do.  Further, they have some great strategy scans and a decent virtual trading platform to practice on.\n\nBrokerages like Fidelity are horrible for anyone with any decent experience.  Though they do have decent research stuff.\n\nBut for research, there are SOOO many places to find good stocks.\n\nSo, decide what's important to you as a trader and compare the brokers! You can use the article, or go to each website as they all seem to have comparison charts! \n\nAnd if there are any other particular things that you want to mention as being most important to you (such as executions, cust svc, cheapest trade - which you mentioned, flexibility on allowing you to do certain types of trades, stop and stop limit orders, contingent orders, great graphing, what if scenarios, training, etc), I'll be glad to help discuss this with you too!\n\nIf you have any questions, let me know.\n\nHope that helps!
884875
I started my investing with Edward Jones. They are lucrative and they have strict requirements before even considering someone for employment.  I have long since moved onto my own (and have done very well at it too) for first timers go ahead and pay the fees to invest in the long run its worth it.
967463
I have BofA.  You don't pay a trading fee for self-directed investments as long as you have $25K in checking/savings/CD accounts with them.  There are no account maintenance fees either.
454883
Whoever answers this question, will give you the broker that they have settled on and now use. But their criteria are different than yours, and you don't tell us what yours are.\n\nAre you trading stocks, commodities, futures, options, or all of these? If the latter, TerraNova is the only one that you can trade everything, real time, online, direct access. A lot of online brokerages claim to give you direct access, but if they take more than a second to execute your trade, it aint direct.\n\nFind the articles online that have evaluated and compared online brokerages. I found a good one online in Barron's, but you'll find others in the trading magazines. \n\nThis is worth putting a little time and effort into, because it's a pain to switch, so once you choose, you're kinda stuck with it. \n\nTownsend Electronics, the Parent company of TerraNova, is the one that digitized and electronified the Nasdaq. They are technological industry leaders and have a powerful and well built trading system. \n\nI use RealTick at TerraNovaOnline, but it costs $275/mo, even though it is unlimited what you can do with it. I think the Investor package is free to use, and just uses one screen. \n\nWhat you should try is a free trial of their Investor platform, which is free. You only get one window to trade from, but hey, with $5,000-how many stocks are you going to watch? Their rates are good also, but of course, it depends on how often you trade. It will take you months to learn all the bells and whistles of what this program can do.\n\nThe other top-of-the line program is TradeStation, but it costs big bucks to join and operate. Some people consider it the Cadillac of trading and technical analysis. \n\nTerraNova is the home of the Day Trader, so they think nothing of you making several hundred trades a day. You don't have to do that, but it's okay here if you do.
719703
I would go for the discount.  Most of the time, the "recommendations" from the full-service brokers aren't that great anyway.  If you do your own research and pick well, the discount ones will save you on fees.
1115951
Easily, you can move your account to either a brokerage firm or mutual fund company.  The bank can do that too (most have their own brokerage firm) but a bank broker is going to have fewer investment options.\n\nBut before you do that, do some homework.  Go buy "Investing for Dummies" and learn how to choose your investments.  You can't trust your friends (and not these boards for sure) to pick your investments.  You can hire a pro, and it is worth it if you have a large account, but for little investors, the cost of that help gives you noticably less to invest (advice isn't fee), so it is good to start out on your own.\n\nAs to stocks and bonds vs funds, stick to funds until you have at least $50-100K.  It is almost impossible to build a good portfolio with individual securities with less than that.\n\nand to your last question, \n\na mutual fund is a professionally managed portfolio of different securities.  They can hold stocks only, bonds only, a mixture of both and other types of securities.\n\nInstead of you trying to buy all those different securities you need to design a good portfolio, the fund has done it for you with your money and the money of other investors.  You buy shares in the fund instead.\n\nThis gives you the same risk/reward potential as a bigger investor.
556359
From a registered stock broker \nOnline. In India, many banks ofer you trading services to the extent of the balnce in your account.\n\nConsult a financil advisor when you buy shares, cross check whether the co. is worth inveting into or not
938997
Scottrade is $7 to buy, $7 to sell (overall great).  sharebuilder is great if you buy and hold for long periods of time (in the $20 a month plan, the first 20 automatic investments a month are free, and about $11 to sell).  I would go with scottrade overall, though (i buy from sharebuilder and also have scottrade but i am too lazy to move all my assets to scottrade(my dad also has scottrade and loves it)).
742413
In addition to Yada's reply I also suggest you contact your bank.  They may execute the trade a little cheaper than a full service broker.
289042
https://www.tradeking.com/PrivateView/services/Services/commissionsPUB.tmpl\n\n\nvery low priced broker no fees\n\nTell your current firm that you are planning to switch, see if they will cut out the fees to keep you.
1039952
TD Ameritrade is the best. I have used for years. The interface are trader friendly and portfolio information are shown in details. I buy penny stocks so the $9.99 fixed commission for unlimited shares is good for me. No maintenance fees.\n\nIf you are going to buy penny stocks, you need to be careful about the commission. Search the fine prints.\n\nFor Scottrade, see fine prints: "For stocks priced under $1, add 1/2% of the principal value to the commissions shown. " You will end up to pay more than $7.\n\nEtrade recently reduced the commission with fixed commission for unlimted shares so it is good for penny stock traders too. But I don't like portfolio web page because it is very confusing and do not show all the information I want to see.
707666
There are a lot of good brokererages depending on what you like and how you trade.\n\nBarron's Online has a great article on brokerages that they publish each year. (I'll try to find you the link for the March 6,2006 article)\n\nFor basic stuff, E*Trade, Ameritrade, and Scottrade are sufficient. For more complex trades, I'd recommend Optionsxpress, ThinkorSwim, or interactivebrokers. \n\nBased on what you put in your question, I'd recommend one of the first three, but all are very good. Cheapest probably is scottrade (of the larger online firms). \n\nBut yes there are cheaper like interactivebrokers, but you'll have to get used to their software based platform (which is doable). They're only about $1/contract on options!\n\nBrokerages like Fidelity are horrible for anyone with any decent experience. \n\nSo, decide what's important to you as a trader and compare the brokers! You can use the article, or go to each website as they all seem to have comparison charts! \n\nAnd if there are particular things that you want to mention as being most important to you (such as executions, cust svc, cheapest trade - which you mentioned, flexibility on allowing you to do certain types of trades, stop and stop limit orders, contingent orders, great graphing, what if scenarios, training, etc), I'll be glad to help discuss this with you too!\n\nIf you have any questions, let me know.\n\nHope that helps!
812195
Well, they aren't out there.  No one has done a comparative, to be published on the web.  But here's what you need to do:\n\n\n You can select 20 publicly traded companies out of the air, here in the US.  Then for each one, \n\nGo to www.sec.gov  click on EDGAR on left\nGo to company filings\nClick on form search - Get the 10-k Audited financials\n\nAll that information will be there.  And it's free.  Print it out, then you can get your own industry average.  \n\nKeep in mind, there are "good" companies and "bad" companies.  Countrywide is rated C, with downward prospects, by AM Best.  They're a financially challenged company, and will be much less profitable than a State Farm or Allstate, for example, both of whom are rated A.
459436
Maybe look into GASB34.  It's an accounting standard for government.  It is causing a lot of uproar because of what it means for asset management.  Hot topic right now.
431020
Here is a very thorough and point-by-point comparison of these two products:\n\nhttp://financialsoft.about.com/od/reviewsfinancesoftware/a/MDel06vsQDel06.htm