sharebuilder - Page 3

jman3232 · #21 05-07-2007, 06:59 PM

I may do Zecco, so if anyone wants a free referral pm me.

gull · #22 05-07-2007, 06:59 PM

Zecco charges $30 per year for IRAs, whereas Sharebuilder might not. I don't know its annual IRA fee. It might be $0. I personally would choose Zecco over Sharebuilder.

Jeff_B · #23 05-07-2007, 07:11 PM

With the basic account its $25 per year if I want to pay $12 per month I get a no fee IRA

I sort of just want to learn and play around possibly make some money.. not going to be investing $1000s and am afriad these $4 per trade fees will kill me

Jeff_B · #24 05-07-2007, 08:47 PM

wait do you pay the $4 fee on the automatic investments? I mean I am doing $50/month and thats 8% seems high...

is there anything I can do with this sort of investment?

jman3232 · #25 05-07-2007, 11:34 PM

yeah, and at sharebuilder, once again, the catch is that it costs $15.95 to sell. That's pretty much where they get you.

stoxtrader · #26 05-08-2007, 12:58 AM

[ QUOTE ]
I read somewhere that some brokerages take kickbacks from market makers. The implication was that market makers "buy" business from brokerages and possibly don't fill the order at the best price available at that time in the market. Is this true? From the customer viewpoint, how would you know that your trade had gone through at 1/8 off of the current market price? If you are buying 50 shares of something, that's a $6.25 difference. Not too much, but more than the difference in the price of trades from one brokerage to the next, in many cases. What if you were buying more? I'm pretty sure I saw this in some book about the day trading phenomenon. No clue if it's accurate. Does this kind of thing happen?

[/ QUOTE ]

This definitely used to be true, it was called "
payment for order flow" or "rebates", if still ture it is much much smaller. with penny spreads on anything relatively liquid you are not losing money to this. Spreads did use to be 1/8-1/4 but this is probably 10 years ago and a function of the liquidity of that particular stock.

Nomad84 · #27 05-08-2007, 01:04 AM

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
I read somewhere that some brokerages take kickbacks from market makers. The implication was that market makers "buy" business from brokerages and possibly don't fill the order at the best price available at that time in the market. Is this true? From the customer viewpoint, how would you know that your trade had gone through at 1/8 off of the current market price? If you are buying 50 shares of something, that's a $6.25 difference. Not too much, but more than the difference in the price of trades from one brokerage to the next, in many cases. What if you were buying more? I'm pretty sure I saw this in some book about the day trading phenomenon. No clue if it's accurate. Does this kind of thing happen?

[/ QUOTE ]

This definitely used to be true, it was called "
payment for order flow" or "rebates", if still ture it is much much smaller. with penny spreads on anything relatively liquid you are not losing money to this. Spreads did use to be 1/8-1/4 but this is probably 10 years ago and a function of the liquidity of that particular stock.

[/ QUOTE ]

Cool. Good to know that it isn't an issue these days. Thanks for clarifying that!

ChromePony · #28 05-08-2007, 02:14 AM

[ QUOTE ]
My parents have been begging me to open account with them for the last week+
Been putting it off
is $4 / trade considered competetive for a small timer? Read 50-100 a month invested tops?

[/ QUOTE ]

If you only have this much to invest you definitely shouldnt be buying individual stocks, the fees will absolutely destroy you...theres basically no way you can over come a 4-8% rake. I also used to have a sharebuilder account and yeah, that $16 to sell thing is very misleading.

You probably be better off finding an index find with a low minimum, not sure where those exist though. I like Vanguard but I think they're mostly 3k min per fund.

Nomad84 · #29 05-08-2007, 05:15 PM

Just a note: Everyone is saying that the sharebuilder costs are misleading because of the $16 sell commission. I can see that point of view, but it's still just $20 to buy and sell. More importantly, based on the name of the site (I basically know nothing about them), they seem to be intended more for building up a position by regularly investing more money in the same group of stocks. In other words, if you add to your position once per month for a long time, then sell in a single transaction, the price structure looks much more attractive. The site (ok...the name) sounds like it's geared more towards this type of regular savings and investment than active trading.