Anyone use an online broker?

Chip Sylverne

Chip Sylverne

Final Approach
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Jun 17, 2006
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Quit with the negative waves, man.
My guy at Smith Barney is about to retire, and the fees are getting out of hand. I make my own calls anyway, so I'm thinking about going to an online brokerage. Little leery of dropping that much in assets into cyberspace, without a human being I know and have a relationship with to get on the horn just in case.

Anybody have experience? How secure is it, really? I don't trade a lot, I'm more of a buy and hold guy. Any experiences or recommendations would be great.
 
I use Scottrade and never have any security issues. $7. per trade.

I did also use Firsttrade for mutual funds, but I rarely did anything with it. I chose Firsttrade over others on on Consumer Reports recomendation.
 
I have accounts at both TD Ameritrade and Fidelity. I like the Ameritrade website/user interface a lot better, but Fidelity is cheaper.
 
I used to use Scottrade and for the most part had no issues. Unfortunately, they do not do automatic dividend reinvestment despite years of promises that they would have it soon.

I now have my money invested with OptionsXpress. Cost a few more bucks per trade, but with the money I make with the automatic dividend reinvesting, I more than make up for it. A while back OptionsXpress merged with Charles Schwab. They were the first broker I ever had. Great company to deal with but their fees were way expensive compared to other online brokerages out there. Not sure what effect this will have on my status with OptionsXpress.
 
USAA. Their family of mutual funds are free to trade, and other trades are $5.95 or $8.95 depending on how many you do per year. I haven't had any problems, and I've no doubt you could pick up the phone and find someone to talk to if you needed.
 
How about at tax time? Do the on-line brokers send a consolidated statement, 1099 div, int, proceeds from broker and barter and such for all holdings in the account? The best thing about SB is the year end consolidated statement.

I quickly looked into some of the recommendations, and the fees look great. I'd save a bunch. My wife has an online ING bank account, but I don't really like their sharebuilder interface. It's not erribly sophisticated.

Do you all find the trading tools useful? I currently use Finviz.com for quick screening, and find it pretty helpful.
Your feedback has been great. I'm thinking this is the way to go.
 
kontiki said:
I use Scottrade and never have any security issues. $7. per trade.

I did also use Firsttrade for mutual funds, but I rarely did anything with it. I chose Firsttrade over others on on Consumer Reports recomendation.
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Wait, you use this guy? :D

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Chip Sylverne said:
How about at tax time? Do the on-line brokers send a consolidated statement, 1099 div, int, proceeds from broker and barter and such for all holdings in the account? The best thing about SB is the year end consolidated statement.
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I am pretty sure all of them do that...the only thing that is a pain to me is the 1040 Schedule D - capital gains and losses. I basically cut and paste from the TD Ameritrade cap. gains download into Excel, but the data takes a little bit of massaging to get into the IRS format.
 
Everskyward said:
Same here.
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Schwab from me too. I've used USAA and while their free exchange of mutual funds may be wonderful, others like Schwab offered much better on- line following of positions; news and service. Had a real falling out with them when they didn't fill a limit order and couldn't find anyone that knew how one was supposed to work--including a floor trader. Had Schwab look at the tape and they immediately explained what happened.

I also use another firm for FOREX and commodities, but it doesn't sound like you need that.

Dave
 
Dave Siciliano said:
didn't fill a limit order and couldn't find anyone that knew how one was supposed to work
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That's scary. I almost always use limit orders. I'd hate to see what they'd do with something more complex.
 
dmspilot said:
I am pretty sure all of them do that...the only thing that is a pain to me is the 1040 Schedule D - capital gains and losses. I basically cut and paste from the TD Ameritrade cap. gains download into Excel, but the data takes a little bit of massaging to get into the IRS format.
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One of the things I love about UBS and TurboTax - a few mouse clicks and that whole darned 1040 D is populated. Thank goodness, my tax return takes enough time without having to do that whole thing by hand.

Anybody ready for a flat tax?
 
Ghery said:
One of the things I love about UBS and TurboTax - a few mouse clicks and that whole darned 1040 D is populated. Thank goodness, my tax return takes enough time without having to do that whole thing by hand.

Anybody ready for a flat tax?
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I will never, ever use TurboTax again -- an audit proved the software is buggy, the "audit protection" is worthless, and the company does not stand behind its product.

Buyer beware!!!
 
dmccormack said:
I will never, ever use TurboTax again -- an audit proved the software is buggy, the "audit protection" is worthless, and the company does not stand behind its product.

Buyer beware!!!
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TurboTax = same company as Quicken.
 
dmccormack said:
I will never, ever use TurboTax again -- an audit proved the software is buggy, the "audit protection" is worthless, and the company does not stand behind its product.

Buyer beware!!!
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Interesting. Any place I can get a copy of the audit? I've been using it for 20 years without any problems. Have I been paying to much to the IRS?
 
I just opened a Sharebuilder account, but havent invested in anything yet. I realized after opening that most mutual funds require a $2000 to $3000 initial investment, and I wasnt initially prepared to sink that much money into it to begin learning. Someone above said their interface isnt very sophisticated, and I've found that I can't really make too much sense of it, especially as a novice.

I don't like the idea of having accounts all over the place (I used SB because I had an ING account already), but if fees and interface are better elsewhere, I would consider opening yet another online account. Also, there is someone in my family who had his own Ameritrade franchise and is managing other stuff for us, so I may think about that as well.
 
Ghery said:
Interesting. Any place I can get a copy of the audit? I've been using it for 20 years without any problems. Have I been paying to much to the IRS?
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I think he meant that an audit of his personal taxes showed that the turbotax return was incorrect.
 
wsuffa said:
TurboTax = same company as Quicken.
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Yep Intuit blows. Their official stance on Mac is awful, thus the reason my wife and I spent the weekend moving everything to our Credit Union's bill pay system.

Over ten years of Quicken will be leaving the house forever soon. Wife's stuck on Snow Leopard until she deems the conversion "done".

As far as online brokerages, using ET and Fidelity here. They work. Not overjoyed with either one. But not exactly unhappy either.

Also have an account at whatever Dreyfus is called these days. Worst web interface of them all.
 
denverpilot said:
Yep Intuit blows. Their official stance on Mac is awful, thus the reason my wife and I spent the weekend moving everything to our Credit Union's bill pay system.

Over ten years of Quicken will be leaving the house forever soon. Wife's stuck on Snow Leopard until she deems the conversion "done".
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Yeah, Intuit isn't very in to it with Macs anymore. It seems like they're trying to abandon them totally. Lately I've been playing with SEE Finance. They're not bad, but it's aggravating how slow it updates investment information (like 1-2 minutes per line item). If they get that squared away, they may have a Quicken killer. iBank ain't bad either, but their investment tracking sucks.
 
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