Comments on: The Best and Worst Discount Brokers

By: PT

PT — Sun, 01 Jun 2008 03:10:07 +0000

Their customer service rating will be sure to improve now that they’re owned by ING.

By: Blake

Blake — Fri, 30 May 2008 16:26:09 +0000

I’m not surprised to see TdAmeritrade ranked towards the top. I am, however, a bit surprised that their customer service wasn’t rated higher. I haven’t had anything but pleasant experiences with them.

The only thing with them, though, is that you don’t want to leave cash in the account, as it barely does anything for you.

By: FFB

FFB — Fri, 30 May 2008 15:08:29 +0000

I’m using Vanguard for my Roth IRA and Sharebuilder for my investments (right now this only consists of some shares of E-Trade. Very speculative but it’s experiment money anyway).

Besides that my company’s 401(k) is through Fidelity and I think we have a good choice of funds there. I buy my CD’s through ING.

I barely buy individual stocks so Sharebuilder works fine for me right now.

By: Ben

Ben — Fri, 30 May 2008 11:49:11 +0000

@hank: Well the most important thing I guess, is that if you are going to do it, pay the least for it. Maintenance fees are a bit of a waste when you’re not paying for anything.

For example, one of the fees with mutual funds is called the 12b-1 fee. It used to be that this fee went towards the marketing of mutual funds when they first became available (circa 1980). They really don’t need that “marketing money” anymore but you still pay it. Kinda sneaky.

By: hank

hank — Fri, 30 May 2008 03:57:32 +0000

I’m actually not a big trader anyway yet. I’m sticking in mutual funds that are buy and hold and use Schwab, so it costs me a few bucks to make the trade, but I don’t plan on moving anything for a while. Don’t know if my meal ticket is trading enough to use a discount brokerage I guess yet…