The Sun's Financial Diary

I bought my first stock nearly 8 years ago with Scottrade, which is also my first stock broker, in 2002 and one that I have been actively using since then. Throughout these years, as more and more online discount brokers emerged, I have also got accounts with other brokerage firms in order to reduce trading [...]

I opened an OptionsHouse brokerage account a few weeks ago after noticing that it has lowered its online stock trade commission to $3.95/trade. That price beats what I currently get from other popular discount brokers, such as TradeKing, Firstrade, and even Zecco. However, since OptionsHouse requires some paperwork (such as a signed form and voided [...]

OptionsHouse first came to my attention in April when I compared online discount brokers for their commissions to trade stocks, mutual funds, and options. However, at that time I didn’t get much interest in the broker at that time because back then, the commission it charges was $4.95 per stock trade, which is the same [...]

Despite all the troubles at the financial service company, E*Trade Financial scored a big win in the latest SmartMoney Broker Survey, leading four out of five categories. Though I don’t use E*Trade as my stock broker, nor do I have a savings account with them, I do have a E*Trade Global Trading Account to trade [...]

The best online discount brokers don’t necessarily offer the best value for investors. Before selecting an online brokerage, it’s better to know how much it will cost you to invest with it, even though cost isn’t the only concern. When I look for a discount broker, one of the most important pieces of information I [...]

I am sure you have called your broker on occasions when you had a problem with your account. Usually, how long did it take for your broker to answer your phone call?  Were you be able to talk to a broker when you needed immediate assistance with your trades? I have a few brokerage accounts [...]

I haven’t used Zecco for a long time, especially after they introduced the new pricing structure , which requires $25,000 account minimum or 25 trades every month in order to get 10 commission free trades per month, early this year. All my recent trades were done with Scottrade, using free trades I neared from the [...]

Firstrade, one of the popular discount online brokers, is offering incentives to people who join and participate in their newly launched online community, The Investor Network. Details of incentives being offered are as the following: Firstrade is very pleased to announce the launch of a promotion on The Investor Network. We’ll be giving an Apple [...]