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Ask HN: Best online brokerage?

4 points by theantidote ↗ HN
I'm looking to do some stock market speculating for a quick gain with little risk. I'll only be investing about $800 and I will be selling pretty quickly thereafter, so fees for both buying and selling should be minimal, so should withdrawal fees. Mint.com integration would be a bonus.

As a token of my appreciation I'll do whatever referral thing your brokerage does (if that's allowed by HN) if I choose your site.

11 comments

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noodle
zecco, although you need to deposit more than $800 to get the free trades. don't have to actually make use of the full deposit amount, though
Shamiq
For what it's worth, I'm trading on Zecco.

They even sent me a shirt when I asked for one on twitter :D

theantidote
Thanks, on my short list. The site doesn't seem to work quite right in Safari but that's a non-issue for me.
pmorici
What about Scottrade, trades are cheap and minimums are low...

http://www.scottrade.com/

theantidote
This is the one I finally decided on and signed up for today, thanks! I'd heard about it before and it looked like a pretty good deal. What made me finally decide was that they had a fairly low minimum deposit, low fees, and they let you withdraw all your money and close your account for free!
mdolon
A lot of my friends swear by ThinkOrSwim, you might want to check them out.

http://www.thinkorswim.com/

theantidote
Thanks for the site, it looks great and it would definitely be my top choice but unfortunately they require a minimum deposit of $3500 and I can't afford that much right now (college student, no income).
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pjharrin
Make sure you don't qualify as a pattern day trader (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pattern_day_trader)

Unless you are looking for education services or becoming a day trade, any discount broker will do. As with most things the more you pay the more you get, ie. thinkorswim isn't the cheapest but they focus on education

theantidote
Thanks for the heads up. I'm not going to be trading that frequently. I just want to make sure that the brokerage I use doesn't charge excessive fees because I will be trading with such a low amount of money for a relatively short term.

I'll mostly be buying cheap blue chips and companies that are basically hard hit by the current crisis but bound to make a comeback within 1-2 years. Which companies exactly I'm not sure yet.

jay888
I would recommend Wells Trade. If you have more than 25K to invest, then you get 100 free trades. Very good customer service