Overall Scottrade Rating

 

Get free trades using code HXOA4390 when you sign up.

 

Summary

 

Scottrade strikes a good balance between quality and value. They have the most physical branches than anyone else online. This gives them an edge with customer service and convenience. With their online set of tools Scottrade is one of the best brokers around. Scottrades biggest downside is that they are more expensive than other brokers with comparable service.

 

Fees & Pricing

 

Scottrade is slightly more expensive than other discount brokers. Any additional fees are kept to a minimum and many costs found in more expensive brokers don’t exist. Most notably is their no fee IRA, no fee for inactiviy, and no minimum balance. Their no

Stock Trade (limit and market) : $7.00
Broker Assisted Trade: $27
Options $7.00 + $1.25 per contract

Mutual Funds (No Load, No Fee): Free
Mutual Funds (No Load): $17

IRA Fees: None
Inactivity Fee: None
Closing Fee: None

Minimum Initial Deposit: $500

 

Investment Products

 

Scottrade offers a full range of investment products including: stocks, options, mutual funds, IRAs, ETF, and ESAs. Their fixed income products include: US Treasuries, bonds, and CDs.

 

Tools and Resources

 

Scottrade has led the pack in real-time, up to the minute, reporting tools. They continue to push the envelope with their ScottradeElite trading platform (but you need $25K to access it). All of their tools have ample video tutorials and documentation to help first time users get started. Their web trading platform is also quite nice with fully customizable columns, reports, and charts.

In addition to software they also provide free access to Dow Jones News.

 

Scottrade Cons

 

Scottrade’s network of brokers is a good thing and a bad thing. It’s good because you can talk to a real person very quickly. It’s bad because they want you to use that instead of resolving many problems through email. They have also made parts of their online program lazy because of the dependence on these branches. To get your money into and out of Scottrade is a real pain. With no electronic transfer to and from a bank account you need to send your money to a Scottrade office for processing. To get your money out you need to request a check. With electronic transfers it cuts the time to a third of what you’d expect at Scottrade. UPDATE: Scottrade now accepts and supports ACH deposits and withdrawls. There was a time they didn’t have this option.

No automatic dividend reinvestment (DRIP) is kind of a downside too. If you invest heavily in dividend stock and like reinvesting the dividends Scottrade might not be for you.

For more advanced trading Scottrade’s system and customer support can be lacking. If you are an experienced trader executing non-traditional trades Scottrade might not be equip to help you much. If, on the other hand, you are a executing standard trades they will work great for you.

 

Scottrade Summary

 

Scottrade offers a competitive investment service and at $7.00 a trade they are hard to beat. The biggest complaint with Scottrade is that they don’t serve the more sophisticated or advanced trader very well. But for 95% of active traders Scottrade is one of the best options around. I still prefer TradeKing or Zecco because they provide the same level of service with less commissions. With that aside they provide a great value and offer a wide range of investment vehicles.

Overall TradeKing Rating

Summary

TradeKing offers the most competitive package compared to all the other online discount brokers. TradeKing’s interface is straight forward and easy to use. I’ve been using them for a few years now and their service is amoung the best I’ve tried visa vis Zecco, Scottrade, Sharebuilder. If you are looking to make a lot of trades their $4.95 fee per trade is unbeatable. They are also friendly to the beginner trader with $4.95 broker assisted trades, no inactivity fees, and top notch research tools.

I would recommend TradeKing to anyone getting into the market for the first time, seasoned traders, IRA account holders, option and day trader If you look around I’m sure you’ll agree that TradeKing has earned all five stars.

Pricing & Fees

It should be noted here that TradeKing offers it’s lowest rates to everyone. There is no need to sign up for a special program or make a certain number of trades a year. If you make 1,000 trades or 10 you will get the same low price.

Stock Trading (Market) $4.95
Stock Trading (Limit) $4.95
Broker Assisted Trade $4.95 (Lowest anywhere)
Option Contract $0.65 (Only Zecco beats them at $0.50)
Margin Rates ($0-$49,999) 6.50% ($50K-$249K) 5.50%

Mutual Funds No Load Purchase/Sale $14.95

Bonds $4.95 per bond
Treasuries $24.95 per transaction

Certificates of Deposit (CDs) $24.95 per transaction

Inactivity fee: None
IRA annual fee: None

No Minimum Balance

Stand Out Features

Check Writing – Write checks directly from your account. This is a newer feature that most top end brokers offered to their clients.

Education – Tradeking is one of the best online brokers for education. Free seminars, tutorials, and tons of other material make this a broker you can learn a lot from.

Options – In the last few years TradeKing has really made options trading a bigger part of their business. They have the second bet pricing structure online. (OptionsHouse is the low cost leader).

Customer service – Tradeking has some of the best customer service anywhere online.

Great for beginners – Their software and approach is user friendly and new users won’t be overwhelmed by the complexity other companies may reveal. Don’t let this fool you, Tradeking is can still provide advanced trading features.

Graphs – They offer ‘risk’ graphs with each of their option trades so you understand a little better what to expect before you pull the trigger.

Tools & Resources

If in depth reports and research is your thing TradeKing has you covered. Their tools include: Options Pricing Calculator, Probability Calculator, Profit + Loss Calculator, Options and Strategy Scanners, Stock, ETF + Mutual Fund Screeners, Fixed Income, Maxit Tax Manager, AutoTrade, and Extra Hours Trading.

Education includes: Technical Analysis Education,Educational Videos and Webinars, Intelligence Reports, Live Events, & Webinar Instructions.

Research resources include: Market + Company Overview, Watchlists, Up to the second Quotes, Free MarketGrader research, Interactive Charts, Option Chains, Technical Analysis.

TradeKing also has a robust community of active traders that can help or give you ideas on trading.

Customer Service

TradeKings website is easy enough to use and navigate that finding answers is easy as pie. In case you need help you can access their award winning customer service through phone, chat, and email. When I had a question on my account they answered my email within five minutes. The wait time on the phone is less than a minute on most days.

Best of all you can talk to an actual broker and if you need to execute a trade it’s still only $4.95

How do they compare?

If you are an old person that likes names like Vanguard or Charles Schwab then I can understand that. But paying 3 to 4 times more for the exact same service? There is no reason for that. In these troubled times our stock portfolio is already taking a hit. Paying all the fees and extra padding other brokers stack on doesn’t make much sense.

If you are going for the bear bones best price, Zecco is for you. If you want something in the middle between discount and full service broker TradeKing and Scottrade are great. If you are wanting more specialized option trading I would suggest optionsXpress.

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