What's is the best discount brokerage company? (Ameritrade, brokers, mutual funds)

[Mentat]

I want to do some investing, but I'm not sure which discount brokerage is the best. Friends have suggested TD Ameritrade or Schwab.

I want to sign up with one that's easy to use, and has low fees. It'd be nice not to have to pay everytime I want to do a trade.

Which do you like, and why?

[Mentat]

Anyone have any advice?

[a34dadsf]

I use zecco.com and interactivebrokers.com for buying on international exchanges.

Zecco used to have 10 free trades per month if you had over 25k but they got rid of it. Now its $5/trade. Now a bad deal if you are buying and holding type of investor. For interactivebrokers its more expensive but if you want to do international trading then they are the best at it.

I've looked at TD and schwab and they seem more expensive then again I haven't looked at them in detail.

From what I've seen its not all about cost per trade. It really depends on how you plan to invest. Also make sure you look at the overall fees. some brokers have withdraw fees and hidden fees (ie. an extra fee PER SHARE).

What type of investing are you looking to do? (forex, buy + hold long-term, buy + hold short-term, day trading, international etc.)

[Dollydo]

I use TD Ameritrade. I just rec'd a letter from them saying that they are going to start charging a small trade fee.

[Teak]

Schwab charges $8.95 per trade online. They offer excellent research and have a bank also if you want FDIC insurance and higher rates than your local bank. Their own brand of mutual funds and ETFs have low fees. The 'OneSource' service gets access to a long list of mutual funds without having to pay a front-end or back-end load.

This was not an advertisement.

[REtoday]

Vanguard. Check them out. I believe they now have $4.00 trades?
Dan

[Mentat]

Originally Posted by a34dadsf

What type of investing are you looking to do? (forex, buy + hold long-term, buy + hold short-term, day trading, international etc.)

Buy + hold short-term and day trading

[Mentat]

Originally Posted by Dollydo

I use TD Ameritrade. I just rec'd a letter from them saying that they are going to start charging a small trade fee.

Yes, $9.99/trade after the first 30 days.

[Mentat]

Originally Posted by Teak

Schwab charges $8.95 per trade online. They offer excellent research and have a bank also if you want FDIC insurance and higher rates than your local bank. Their own brand of mutual funds and ETFs have low fees. The 'OneSource' service gets access to a long list of mutual funds without having to pay a front-end or back-end load.

Originally Posted by REtoday

Vanguard. Check them out. I believe they now have $4.00 trades?

I will check both of these out. Thanks.

[Oildog]

There are many threads about this already, I've mentioned in most I've used Schwab since 96.