The Sun's Financial Diary

We all know that Bank of America has a broker unit which also offers commission-free equity trades. However, to qualify for the 30 free trades per month, you will have to have at least $25,000 combined assets in deposit accounts with BofA. Though the dollar amount required for free trades is the same as Zecco [...]

Wikinvest generated a lot of buzz a couple of weeks ago when it announced a platform that lets users track their investments at brokers in real-time. If you are not familiar with Wikinvest, it works kind of like Mint.com, which tracks transactions in my bank accounts,  but what Wikinvest tracks are investments at brokerage accounts. [...]

In November 2009, Charles Schwab launched a series of ultra-low fee exchange-traded funds (ETFs). Among them, the Schwab U.S. Broad Market ETF (SCHB) has an expense ratio (ER) of 0.08%, beating the equivalent from low-cost fund leader Vanguard by 0.01%. Though the difference may not be that significant for individual investors, it did show the [...]

Online discount broker OptionsHouse is running a couple of promotions right now, aiming at helping its customers get educated and become better investors. The first new promotion is free investment coaching. Any new customer who opens and funds a cash account with at least $1,000 will receive 90 days free of the OptionsHouse Investment Coaching [...]

I have heard some storied about using Twitter as a tool for better customer service because more and more financial companies such as banks, credit card issuers and brokerages are using social media to reach out to existing and potential customers. Those stories, though seem real, I had no personal experience since I don’t have [...]

Since I became a customer of Zecco Trading three years ago in 2007, I have seen Zecco made many changes, to both its website and the products it offers. For most of the time, however, I wasn’t that impressed by the change, until I saw its latest invention, Zap Trade, which I think is probably [...]

SmartMoney magazine has recently published its 2010 Annual Broker Survey. In the survey, SmartMoney evaluated a number of brokers, including both online discount brokers and full service firms, in the areas of Commissions & Fees, Customer Service, Trading Tools, Mutual Funds, Banking Services, and Research, as it did in the past. The evaluation is based [...]

Vanguard, the mutual fund giant, has followed the lead of Charles Schwab and Fidelity to reduce trading cost for its customers and offer commission free trade of its own ETFs. Early this year, both Charles Schwab and Fidelity announced plans to lower equity trade commissions with Fidelity going a little bit further to offer customers [...]