TradeKing Review – Online Broker Ratings

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.

Visit TradeKing

Benny says:

November 10, 2009 at 3:14 pm

Tradeking’s flat fee of $4.95 is great, but… For penny stocks you pay additional $0.01 per share. Scottrade fro example chareges $7 per share + 0.5% for the purchase value.

An example:
2000 shares of $0.80/share – total cost $1,600.00
Tradeking fee: $24.95 ($4.95 + 2000 * $0.01/share)
Scottrade fee: $15.00 ($7.00 + 1600 * 0.5%)

So, price still depends on what you buy.

David says:

July 26, 2010 at 8:42 pm

I just signed up for Tradeking after finding out about there $4.95 flat fee. Biggest mistake of my life. They have the price to attract the customer, but customer service was terrible. I had wired funds and was successful at my bank end, but to find out about their unusual document limitations they had rejected the transfer because I had a joint account. They stated that I cannot use 3rd party to deposit funds. Clearly, I was the account holder showing my name and my partner’s name on the bank statement they had requested from me, but they insisted that I was the 3rd party. They had redefined the definition of 3rd party according to “their 3rd party policy”. They had wired back the money and deducted the fee from their side. Although it was a small amount of $25 that they had robbed from me, I had spent almost 6 hours going back and forth sending documents and conversation to find out I was robbed at the end. It was just a waste of time. I am definitely not going to recommend them for that matter!

Discount Option Brokers – Reviews and Ratings | Money Tip Central says:

July 28, 2010 at 3:34 pm

[…] match a competitors commissions just by asking for them. These investors have confirmed receiving TradeKing commission on their thinkorswim account. It’s worth a […]

trader says:

January 6, 2011 at 4:16 pm

Tradeking is pathetic their online trading down today many glitches on site not fixed since backroom conversion 5months ago.Was great until conversion to Pension.

Riddick says:

November 28, 2011 at 11:24 pm

TradeKing Sucks… they don’t allow you to test drive their advanced tools unless you put up money. I set up an account with a small dollar amount to start and after 5 minutes in their tools I knew it was sub-par. Their advanced tools are low end, subed out from a third party and the advanced tools don’t allow you to trade, but link back to an html interface… so it looks low tech and is less functional, slow… I immediately set up a withdrawal of my cash. But wait, they have an anti money laundering policy, so they think they can hold your money for at least ten days before they will let you withdraw YOUR cash. Then they gave me a hard time when I tried to take out my cash… they told me I had to call in to make a withdrawal, so I did and I ripped the poor fool that got stuck with the phone call… pure arrogance on their part… stay away!!!!!! No tolerance for any company with an attitude.

Personal Finance Tips