WHO IS BEST ONLINE BROKERAGE?
Q: I plan to set up an account and start trading NASDAQ stocks thru an Online Brokerage. I've looked at the websites of Etrade, Ameritrade, Datek, and some others, but the only way to really know who is good and who isn't is to hear from people who've used them.
A:
Datek Online is often cited as having very fast execution speed, high
capacity servers, and good service as well - features you'll find to be
very important, especially on high volume days. I find their site to be
very well organized and easy to use, and they are very reasonable at
$9.99 per trade with no hidden costs. You can establish a
free with mimimum balance.
I use them for all my trading and wrote software that provides real-time
charting and alerts based on their fast servers. A free fully
functional trial version of DART Chart can be downloaded at:
http://www.flairsoft.com. Flair Software's link is also located on
Datek's site under Investor Resources|Tools.
If interest rate heads south, I think stocks will have more to gain
than bonds. Bonds are for sure more stable/secure than stocks and
it's mostly attractive to people near/in retirement that can't
afford the risk exposure. Proportionally, bonds market is like 10 times
the stock.
Gentlemen who prefer bonds avoided a 20% drop in their portfolio value, friend.
I don't know what I'm missing... because it's NOT MISSING! LOL
I noticed you don't comment on the other three shortcomings of Datek. I will
add for the reader's consumption Datek also is incapable of trading
commodities. That takes the place of bonds, the trading of which at Datek is
still extremely questionable in my opinion.