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thinkorswim

Barron’s 2010 Online Broker Rankings

by Michael Comeau on March 18, 2010

Great news! Barron’s just released its always-excellent and comprehensive annual survey of online brokers.Among its overall findings:

  • “Commissions on stock transactions dropped at most big firms like Charles Schwab, E*Trade and Fidelity.”
  • “New products are proliferating. Investors can now work out complicated options straddles, place orders virtually instantaneously and put their money to work in Singapore or Germany while hedging their bets in dollars or euros or exchange-traded funds.”
  • “A number of online brokers improved their rankings over Barron’s 2009 survey by updating their Websites and making key features more accessible.”

Enough of that stuff, on to the rankings:

Barron’s rated the following brokers as the best for long-term investing:

  1. Fidelity
  2. Charles Schwab
  3. OptionsXpress
  4. TD*Ameritrade
  5. E*Trade
  6. Muriel Siebert

And for frequent traders, Barron’s put the following guys on top:

  1. MB Trading
  2. Lightspeed Trading
  3. Interactive Brokers
  4. ChoiceTrade
  5. Tradestation
  6. Thinkorswim

Read the full Barron’s article, which includes additional rankings for options and international trading here.

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Fidelity Lowers Trading Commissions

by Michael Comeau on February 2, 2010

Yes, the online broker pricing war is still on. Fidelity Investments announced today that it is cutting its commissions for online stock trades from $8-$19.95 per trade to a flat $7.95 fee. This news comes just a month after Charles Schwab (SCHW) announced it would be cutting its own stock-trade price down to $8.95 a trade.

Fidelity also said it is waiving commissions on 25 ETF’s from BlackRock’s (BLK) iShares division. If you recall, Schwab announced eight commission-free ETF’s back in November.

However, even with its new $7.95 per-trade commission, Fidelity is still charging much more than smaller competitors like TradeKing and Thinkorswim.

So if you’re looking for the absolute cheapest trading commissions, you’ll have to look elsewhere. That said, Fidelity is offering a better deal for stock traders than E*Trade and Ameritrade – and it does have the benefit of a branch network.

Nonetheless, when choosing an online broker, commissions should never be your primary focus – unless you’re moving heavy volumes.

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Which Thinkorswim Rate Plan is Best?

Let’s talk Thinkorswim, the love of my trading life.

Yes, I love Thinkorswim, but they have way too many commission rate plans. There’s a standard rate plan, and two others called EX/RATES #1 and EX/RATES #2.
Here’s the breakdown of how the standard plan for stock and options trades works:
For stocks, it’s 1.5 cents per share with [...]

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How to Compare Commissions Between Brokers

A reader we’ll call Moose (name changed to protect the guilty) just emailed me the following question:
Michael, how should I compare commissions between my current broker (OptionsXpress) and TradeKing?
Sounds like Mr. Moose is thinking about switching! First things first…
Really consider why you are switching. If you are happy with your current broker – particularly when [...]

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Is Zecco Unethical?

BrokerSense reader Tony posted the following comment in response to my page on Zecco:
While everything you said about Zecco is true, I am quite miffed at them for their “bait and switch” tactic that lured a lot of small investors to them before they “changed their model.” Zecco started out with unlimited no-commission trades. Too [...]

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Thinkorswim on a Mac

I am one happy camper – I just bought my first Apple (AAPL) Mac!
My new baby, which will be named something hot like Carmen or Estella, is a lightly-used early-2008 Macbook. It’s also a beast!
My last notebook was a Hewlett-Packard (HPQ) laptop, and it was a dog. Nothing against HP – in fact, I give [...]

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OptionsXpress Adds Features for Active Traders

OptionsXpress (OXPS) announced some additions to its software platform today to meet the needs of active stock and options traders.
First, the company added real-time, streaming updates for options chains within web browsers. I wasn’t aware optionsXpress’ platform didn’t have this functionality, but it is definitely a plus. Options prices can change a heck of a [...]

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Thinkorswim Software Update – All Good Here!

thinkorswim has updated its thinkDesktop software platform twice in the past couple of months, adding a ton of new features. Most of it’s stuff that I’ll never use, but there are some things that I really find helpful.
The first is the added icons next to ticker symbols that alert you to things like upcoming earnings [...]

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