Posted: 9/11/2006 11:56:33 AM EDT
Just wanted to let the investment community know I had a good experience with scottrade today. If you're interested in sort of dabbling around in the investing world, but don't have much cash to play with and might need to take all the money out of the account, they have a few positive points to take note of, especially this one. I just called them today afraid I'd have to close the account because I needed the money (car insurance is a bitch and a half at my age  )Turns out they will allow you to keep an account open, even with zero balance! Very helpful and friendly. Just felt like sharing. |
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Thank you for the review. I have been sniffing around their website, but haven't had any outside info about them to consider. I am essentailly an ameba on the investors evolutionary scale. I have no desire to swim into a dish of bleach. (Yeah, I know. My analogies suck  )
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They were fine for options with me, so long as the options were on stocks and indexes. If you want to trade derivatives on commodities or say interest rates or forex, Scottrade cannot help you. |
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So are Ameritrades (now TD Ameritrade). I had the original Ameritrade acct since late 1999. I left the Ameritrade and went to Datek on year 2001. After that Datek merged M&A with Ameritrade and now it is TD Ameritrade. I was using the Datek side of Ameritrade. 2 weeks ago, I wanted to open another money market acct and called Ameritrade acct that i had since 1999. Only thing I had to do is verify few info and there... i restore my old ameritrade acct with zero balance. I think I had that acct balance of zero for 5yrs and still be able to use em. |
I do. I lost a little money there this year but that's my fault. I didn't invest wisely. I did learn a lot though so that's worth something. I put a little money in the account and am playing with it. Just enough that I don't lose any sleep over losing it but enough that I can play and learn how things work. I've learned a lot in the last few months. |
i've been poking around on there too. i'm still in my research process as to what i want to do before i actually do it. thanks for the vote for sharebuilder though. |
I dont think you can go wrong with sharebuilder. I dont think they have the best analysis tools like Schwab but for long term investing you dont need that. You figure out what you want to own based on your own research, watching CNBC,etc.. Their trades cost only $4 each if you buy once a month. Real time trades cost more of course. I started by buying only a few hundred $ worth of big name companies that pay hefty dividends. I have about 10 companies now and buy about $300 of stock each month by adding to existing holdings or adding a new company to the list. the stock market is more interesting once you get in and have something to look at in the newspaper, etc.. |