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News

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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New Page – Interactive Brokers

by Michael Comeau on February 17, 2010

I just wanted to highlight a new page I wrote up on Interactive Brokers. No, I don’t waste your time by listing every commission charge on every little thing – I just stick with what you actually need to know!

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Best Broker for Deep in the Money Calls

I wrote quite a bit about Lenny Dykstra on LongShortTrader.com, and to this day, I receive questions about Lenny’s deep-in-the-money call option trading strategy.
In fact, Just last week someone asked me to suggest an online broker for trading deep-in-the-money call options.
First of all, let’s define the term.

Call options with exercise prices below the current stock [...]

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New Pages!

Hi folks, I just added a couple of new pages to the site. I’ve been working on some other writing projects lately, but I’m starting to make more time for this site.
You can now read about:
RBC Direct Investing
Barron’s Online Broker Rankings
Scarsdale

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E*Trade Joins Commission-Cutting Party

Yes folks, commission rates are still falling – at a rate even I’m surprised at. Following Fidelity’s move last week, E*Trade (ETFC) announced that it was ’simplifying’ its commission rate schedule.

E*Trade is trashing its $12.99 pre-trade commission tier as well as its account activity fees – a nice bonus for those of us who don’t [...]

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Fidelity Lowers Trading Commissions

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 [...]

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E*Trade Takeover Rumors! YES!

I’m writing this a little bit late, but I doubt fellow E*Trade (ETFC) bulls are going to complain:
The UK’s Telegraph reported that the online brokerage firm is once again the target of takeover rumors, sending the stock up over 6% on the day. I own E*Trade call options, so there’s no doubt that I’m biased [...]

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Ron Insana Out At TheStreet.com

I wrote extensively on my other blog about Lenny Dykstra’s stint as an options “expert” at TheStreet.com (TSCM), for whom he authored an investment newsletter and many columns. To make a long story short, Lenny had an incredibly fast but short run in the financial media world, finally crashing to Earth in bankruptcy.
Lenny made good [...]

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