Online stock trading

flyingcheesehead

flyingcheesehead

Touchdown! Greaser!
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iMooniac
Does anyone here have any experience with the stock trading sites (etrade, ameritrade, are there any others?) I'd like to do some investing and I want it to be cheap and easy.
 
FWIW, I use Charles Schwab. I do everything online, they have great research resources, etc., but it sure is comforting knowing I can drive within a mile and walk into a Schwab office if I need something special.

The trades aren't the cheapest in the game (I pay $9.95, others pay $12.95), but I won't go any cheaper just to go cheaper. The above benefits are worth it. Regardless, it is a drop in the bucket compared to the "full service" (whatever that means) broker I used to use, with commissions in the $hundreds.
 
Kent:

I use USAA but will probably open another account. E-trade and Schwab were rated well by Consumers Reports. I didn't like E-trade because they just had me on hold too long. Never could find out if they had what I wanted. May try Schwab.

Think about what you need. They all say they have great research, but I've found a lot of if doesn't help me much. Do you want help on occasion; I sometimes do: entered a limit order recently and wanted some advise. I like to monitor a portfolio, get good news, be able to dig through financials and research how to do things many folks don't. For instance, earlier this year, wanted to purchase CDs in Euros, short home builder stocks and participate in rising energy prices. Couldn't really find a broker geared to those things. They have research from their own firm, but didn't know how to implement outside ideas very well.

Let me know how you come out.

Best,

Dave
 
Kent:

I went back on the Consumer's Reports site. Can't provide a link as it's a subscription service. Let me know if you want more detail, but Firstrade Securities; E-Trade; Trade King and Schwab were the top four firms in that order. Their rating may be a bit different than what your needs are, but this is a good start.

Sure would appreciate some good tips <g>. They certainly won't be related to my business right now!!

Best,

Dave
 
I use Schwab as well. Good online tools and, perhaps as importantly, good online records of your transactions so you can keep track of capital gains/losses. Also good sweep functions and you can link to your other bank accts to make transfers back and forth if you want.
 
Fidelity Active Trader Pro and Wealth Labs Pro are two solid applications. Fee structure kinda stinks and minimum trades apply, but ATP is a nice desktop tool...

-ars
 
I've been looking into this myself, and I've HEARD that ShareBuilder.com is a good option, but I've never used it. I was thinking ETrade myself.

Just another option :)
 
I used E-Trade for while but when the tech bubble burst they started charing all kinds of hidden service charges and I dropped them. Maybe they have changed but they lost me as a customer. I use USAA for some bonds and the rest I have been using T-Rowe Price. I started with T-Row Price with an asset builder account about 10 years ago. That way I avoided their service fees and set aside a certain amount each month. That account has now changed as I am into the one that they let me trade at a cost of almost nothing since I have enough assets with them.

BTW if this is for retirement and you have a 401k or an equivalent, if you have yet to max it out you should do so first. Then save in the other account.
 
Dave Siciliano said:
Sure would appreciate some good tips <g>. They certainly won't be related to my business right now!!
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Thanks Dave... I hadn't thought about buying CD's in Euros, that's a new one!

My best tip for you:

1) Go back in time, one year or 10.
2) Buy all the Apple stock you can afford.

You'd double your money if you went back one year (now that's not a bad return!), and you'd have 10x the money times however many stock splits they've done if you went back 10 years.

I wish I'd have bought some Apple stock 10 years ago! :yes:
 
flyingcheesehead said:
Thanks Dave... I hadn't thought about buying CD's in Euros, that's a new one!

My best tip for you:

1) Go back in time, one year or 10.
2) Buy all the Apple stock you can afford.

You'd double your money if you went back one year (now that's not a bad return!), and you'd have 10x the money times however many stock splits they've done if you went back 10 years.

I wish I'd have bought some Apple stock 10 years ago! :yes:
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What about Google? I mean geez, while everyone else was taking hits yesterday, Google just kept rising.

http://finance.yahoo.com/q/bc?s=GOOG&t=5y&l=off&z=l&q=l&c=
 
mikea said:
I was gonna mention that. I remember when the common wisdom that there was mass insanity when Google hit $104 and $139 at the IPO. Those were the days.
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I bought a boatload of RedHat at 42 and sold it at 235 just after it peaked less than 4 months later. Those WERE the days indeed!!
 
Remember when Qualcomm was $430 a share, before the big split?

41% runup in GOOG from 9/1 to today. Sorry, I rode that bus once already, I'm gonna take my money and play somewhere else.

Cheers,

-Andrew
 
nddons said:
FWIW, I use Charles Schwab. I do everything online, they have great research resources, etc., but it sure is comforting knowing I can drive within a mile and walk into a Schwab office if I need something special.

The trades aren't the cheapest in the game (I pay $9.95, others pay $12.95), but I won't go any cheaper just to go cheaper. The above benefits are worth it. Regardless, it is a drop in the bucket compared to the "full service" (whatever that means) broker I used to use, with commissions in the $hundreds.
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Seconded. Schwab's online trading resources are pretty good (and you can do things like extended market and options trading if that's your kind of thing) and they're very customer friendly.

-Felix
 
Kent:

As a follow up, I've noticed E-Trade has encountered some other financial issues which may take its attention away from its core business of on-line trading. I'd steer elsewhere for now if not already committed. I know deposits are insured, but if the company is dealing with financial problems, it can have a spill over effect on doing business with them.

http://seekingalpha.com/article/54539-e-trade-to-customers-your-money-is-safe

Best,

Dave
 
Dave Siciliano said:
Kent:

As a follow up, I've noticed E-Trade has encountered some other financial issues which may take its attention away from its core business of on-line trading. I'd steer elsewhere for now if not already committed. I know deposits are insured, but if the company is dealing with financial problems, it can have a spill over effect on doing business with them.

http://seekingalpha.com/article/54539-e-trade-to-customers-your-money-is-safe

Best,

Dave
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Thanks Dave!

After looking at all the sites people recommended, I signed up with Schwab a couple days ago. Now it's time to fund the account and start gambling, uh, investing. :D

Just wish I'd bought GRMN yesterday... What caused them to shoot up like that???
 
flyingcheesehead said:
Just wish I'd bought GRMN yesterday... What caused them to shoot up like that???
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Man, and to think I used to have shares at $28... I bet this news from yesterday helped spur the spike:

Garmin Ltd. And TomTom NV Reach Global Settlement Of Litigation
07:30 a.m. 11/15/2007 Provided by Reuters


Garmin Ltd.announced that a confidential global settlement of all of its intellectual property litigation with TomTom NV. The settlement resolves all of the pending intellectual property litigation including cases in the UK, Netherlands, Wisconsin, and Texas. The parties did not disclose details of their agreement.
Click to expand...
 
I used Scottrade and Fidelity to trade stocks, then I realized a better return could be made, with fewer fees, a lower tax liablity, all while spending less time researching/worring about the market. This leaves more time for flying! I'm convinced that the analysts and TV shows are more concerned with making money off of trading fees than they are about your portfolio. I'd reccomend low cost index funds from (vanguard/fidelity), or exchange traded funds (sharebuilder is good). Great research and evidence about the merits of stock picking vs long term index investing can be found at www.ifa.com. (I don't work for them or invest with them, but the book and other materials are quite interesting)
 
Scottrade and OptionsXpress for me. All IRA stuff for the most part. I like Scottrade because it's cheap. I like OptionsXpress for options trading, plus I have a service where trades are made automatically for me at no additional cost. That helps since I'm on the road a lot.

Used to have Schwab. It's probably one of the best for research tools and investing education, but the commission cost was too much for my trading style.
 
I suppose everyone has their own feelings on finances. In my case, I follow the long term investment strategy that has worked well for my family for the past few generations. Basically, we look at making good investments that will grow with time, understanding the market has fluctuations. Lots of people (especially these days with the proliferation of online investing) want to constantly be trading stocks.

I have an investment advisor who I trust (finding one you trust being the hard part). Sure, it means my trades cost more, but since I follow the above strategy, my trades are minimal anyway so it doesn't matter. Also, my investment advisor is someone who spends his day researching this stuff. It's his job to analyze these things, and he's been doing it for years. I know how to look at data from an engine in a test cell or in the field and analyze it. He knows how to look at data of the markets and analyze that. If he wants to go out and buy an engine, he probably can't go out and do all the R&D work that I do, so it makes more sense for him to buy one of mine. Similarly, if I want to do investing, I don't have the time to do the kind of research that he can. But I do know a thing or two about engines, which sure is useful when I'm working on my cars. :)

Then again, if your job involves dealing with investments, companies, etc. you're probably in a better position than I am for doing such trades yourself. I just play around with engines all day. :)
 
What Ted said. Remember that when you get your data through one of these on-line trading services, it's already old news and the folks who do this real time, on the Street, for a living, have already seen and acted on it, making you a follower, not a leader, and that's no way to be trading if you want to make money.
 
Ron Levy said:
What Ted said. Remember that when you get your data through one of these on-line trading services, it's already old news and the folks who do this real time, on the Street, for a living, have already seen and acted on it, making you a follower, not a leader, and that's no way to be trading if you want to make money.
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Yep. I have too many friends who end up panicing because they're watching their stocks go up and down a penny, thanks to these real-time things. The funny thing is that one of these people is a test pilot. :)
 
Ron Levy said:
What Ted said. Remember that when you get your data through one of these on-line trading services, it's already old news and the folks who do this real time, on the Street, for a living, have already seen and acted on it, making you a follower, not a leader, and that's no way to be trading if you want to make money.
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But you're only ahead if you get a good investment advisor that's looking after your interests and not being compensated for churn. Pay for the advice, follow it. Or select a few stocks that meet your profile and dollar-cost-average your way in. Or select a (few) good mutual fund(s) to spread the risk.

For every good advisor there's a bad one. Even the ones plugged into the Street are sometimes behind the curve. By the time your advisor calls you about a trade, you're still a follower as the folks on the Street have executed. The benefit to DCA is avoiding a lot of that.
 
Right, Bill, but that depends on your strategy. Once again, I personally invest for long term. I'm not concerned about my investments going down 10% today for a market lull so long as 20 years from now they've made me a healthy return, and allow me to afford the $50/gal AvGas for that Aztec I want to fly. Now obviously if they keep on going down 10% a day, then pretty soon I'm going to be out of money. :)

So in my case, I've got some good investments that I want to periodically review and see if it makes sense to change them, but ultimately I really just want to leave them alone and let them do their thing. Think about it like your plane. Do you want to have to constantly fix it and make adjustments, or just jump in, turn the key, and fly it every time without constant tinkering? For me, I am more interested in the flight aspect of it than the repair asepct of it (even though both interest me) so I would rather have the plane that I can just leave alone, do an annual on, and otherwise not have to worry about it. :)
 
Haven't made the leap quite yet... The pessimist in me is wondering if these oil prices are gonna send us into a recession or worse...
 
Ted DuPuis said:
Right, Bill, but that depends on your strategy. Once again, I personally invest for long term. I'm not concerned about my investments going down 10% today for a market lull so long as 20 years from now they've made me a healthy return, and allow me to afford the $50/gal AvGas for that Aztec I want to fly. Now obviously if they keep on going down 10% a day, then pretty soon I'm going to be out of money. :)

So in my case, I've got some good investments that I want to periodically review and see if it makes sense to change them, but ultimately I really just want to leave them alone and let them do their thing. Think about it like your plane. Do you want to have to constantly fix it and make adjustments, or just jump in, turn the key, and fly it every time without constant tinkering? For me, I am more interested in the flight aspect of it than the repair asepct of it (even though both interest me) so I would rather have the plane that I can just leave alone, do an annual on, and otherwise not have to worry about it. :)
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To each his own.

Dollar cost averaging avoids the "does it go down or up" pitfalls because you buy over time, rather than trying to time the market. Of course, if you're buying inflated stock with inflated stock as certain companies that will go unmentioned did in the early 2000's (*cough*timewar*cough*ao*cough*), the risk/reward changes as opposed to cash.

And you really should be reviewing and rebalancing your portfolio periodically. Just like you need to constantly look out, check the weather & winds, and adjust your flight path/altitude for conditions. A forecast is just that.

Mutual funds are about the most "hands-off" way you can go.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not disparaging financial advisors one bit. I'm saying choose carefully, and make very sure that they are compensated for the service they provide to you, as opposed to being compensated for "churning" your portfolio. If you've got a good one, then great. But I've seen a lot of bad advisors... the worst are the ones that are paid by the transaction as opposed to a retainer.

But again, to each his own.
 
flyingcheesehead said:
Haven't made the leap quite yet... The pessimist in me is wondering if these oil prices are gonna send us into a recession or worse...
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International stock funds. The ones I have in my 401K have been performing phenomenally.

I figger whatever you risk with sketchy foreign accounting practices you gain with not being in the U.S. and having assets in Euros and being in countries that are growing much faster than the U.S. Besides, domestic accounting hasn't exactly been golden either.
 
Ted DuPuis said:
Yep. I have too many friends who end up panicing because they're watching their stocks go up and down a penny,
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I remember the Oct 87 crunch. Folks were tearing their hair out. Someone asked me how much I lost, and I said, "Nothing." "Nothing!!??" "Yep -- haven't sold a share, so I haven't lost a dime. It will all be back in a year, and it's my retirement money which I don't need for another 25 years anyway, by which time my investments will be worth many times what they are today." And I was right. The only folks who really lost money then were the ones who sold off low in the aftermath of the drop, and then bought back higher later when the values had gone up again.

Even those folks hadn't really lost money, as only those who actively traded on a daily basis had paid less for their shares than they received. The ones who had bought things years before only gave up profits. Of course, those who just rode it out (and even kept buying in a depressed market, as I did) made the real money. These days, my biggest concern is making sure my financial manager is keeping up with our standing stop-loss orders while investing in instruments with solid fundamentals.

After more than 40 years of watching the market, I have concluded that there are only two ways to make money there: make sound investments in solid companies over a long period, or be a broker making a commission on every trade by your clients.
 
Ron Levy said:
After more than 40 years of watching the market, I have concluded that there are only two ways to make money there: make sound investments in solid companies over a long period, or be a broker making a commission on every trade by your clients.
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Bingo. Invest for the long term. Heck, my financial adviser isn't calling me, even with the market volatility we're seeing right now. The strategy hasn't changed, so why bother? And UBS gets a fee as a percentage of the account balance, they don't charge for individual trades. So churn isn't a worry.
 
Slight deviation from this thread but I would like to see what your top five picks might be in this market.

I still like Garmin, GE, Boeing, but can't decide on the last two.
 
radiokaos said:
Slight deviation from this thread but I would like to see what your top five picks might be in this market.

I still like Garmin, GE, Boeing, but can't decide on the last two.
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Union Pacific. I suspect that right now would be a good time to buy if you can wait 5-6 years before cashing in.....
 
the big 3?

in 1979 a professor offered my dads accounting class 500 shares of chrysler at a dollar a share. no one would take it. that was before their last bailout.
 
I just bought a bunch of Ford today. We'll see what happens.
 
I look at how the stock is trading vs the 30 day trend. Then the MACD, then STO. If that looks good, is institutional money going into the sector? If it's going into the sector, is it going into the stock?... But then again, I'm a technical trader and don't even know what the heck half the stocks I buy and sell are selling when I place the order. I've been trading puts that last 3 weeks and have been in the money most of the time. Selling short has been rewarding.



This is NOT to be construed as advice or recommendation.
 
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