Brokerages for Individual Accounts

[nsa122]

Hello all, looking for advice/experiences on brokerages.  I am currently with Scottrade and have bank acct, individual brokerage and IRA.  Their service has been fine, except for the lack of "full bank" services, ie inability to accept savings bonds or cash and other rare things that you need a physical bank branch for.  I'd like to have one financial institution for all my stuff, and for that reason I have been looking at Merrill Edge/BAC, which right now is offering $600 bucks or so for switching in addition to 30 free trades/month and "premium" BAC banking services.  I am hesitant because I am wondering how they will make money off of me, and it always seems like something gets screwed up with any change-over. Plus I don't want to be called and bothered by brokers selling me stuff.  Anyone have any advice, or willing to share their experiences or favorite broker for individual accounts? Anyone using Merrill Edge?

 

Thanks.

[writser]

I think Interactivebrokers is the best if you like no-nonsense low-cost internet brokerage.

[nsa122]

With Interactive Brokers it looks like I would pay many times the $7 per trade I currently pay with Scottrade.  I guess I should add that I trade a couple of times per year and clarify that I am looking for convenience and consolidated services.  My complaint with Scottrade is lack of technological features like photo deposit of checks, and lack of full service bank features like being able to accept savings bonds or other one-off transactions that I still need a bank account for.  I'd like to use one institution and website for banking/bill pay and brokerage services, which I suppose narrows options to one of the major banks.

[rkbabang]

With Interactive Brokers it looks like I would pay many times the $7 per trade I currently pay with Scottrade.  I guess I should add that I trade a couple of times per year and clarify that I am looking for convenience and consolidated services.  My complaint with Scottrade is lack of technological features like photo deposit of checks, and lack of full service bank features like being able to accept savings bonds or other one-off transactions that I still need a bank account for.  I'd like to use one institution and website for banking/bill pay and brokerage services, which I suppose narrows options to one of the major banks.

 

Why not use a bank for banking and stay with Scottrade for brokerage (if your happy with them)?  I use Fidelity ($7.95/trade) and I do my banking at a local credit union.  It takes me about a day to transfer money between accounts electronically.  I've actually been looking into switching to Interactive Brokers because the costs of trading options is so much lower than Fidelity charges me now.  And even stocks, their flat rate option is $0.005/share.  You would pay $7 or less for any transaction of 1400 shares or less.  It depends on how many shares you tend to trade I guess.

 

[PLynchJr]

I use Fidelity for all my banking and brokerage account needs.  I've been very happy with them.  I love being able to deposit checks on my iPhone & iPad.

[matjone]

I was thinking IB also had a flat rate option that was cheaper than $7 a trade for u.s. equities.  Could be wrong though.

[Gopinath]

I'm using Bank of America(Bank) & Merrill Lynch(Brokerage) since the merger.. I get free trades on almost all of them & they don't try to make any money off of me. I must say, i'm happy with their service!

[Hielko]

I was thinking IB also had a flat rate option that was cheaper than $7 a trade for u.s. equities.  Could be wrong though.

IB is way cheaper than $7/trade. Flat rate is $1/trade and if you go for variable pricing it can be even cheaper if you are willing to provide liquidity.

[rkbabang]

I was thinking IB also had a flat rate option that was cheaper than $7 a trade for u.s. equities.  Could be wrong though.

IB is way cheaper than $7/trade. Flat rate is $1/trade and if you go for variable pricing it can be even cheaper if you are willing to provide liquidity.

 

According to this : http://individuals.interactivebrokers.com/en/p.php?f=commission 

 

Their "flat rate"  is $0.005 per share with a $1 minimum.  So for 200 shares or under it would be $1.  If you traded 1400 shares it would be $7.  If you traded over 1400 shares it would be more.  This would usually save me money, although I recently bought 20000 shares of something and Fidelity charged me $7.95 for the trade.  IB would have charged me $100 using the flat rate.