Recommendations
Using the links provided on this site to set up an account with any of these brokers will help us to offset the costs of maintaining this site. The publisher of StocksandMutualFunds.com maintains open accounts at both Zecco and Tradeking for personal trading. This page was last updated January 27, 2012.
Broker |
Min. Balance |
Lowest Transaction Fee |
The Catch |
Broker Assited |
Extra Fees |
| Charles Schwab | $2,500; ($2000 for IRAs) | $9.95 | $1,000,000 account balance or >120 trades per year for lowest rate; $12.95 per trade otherwise. |  Comission plus $25.00 |
$12.50 per quarter for accounts that fall below minimum balance. |
| E*Trade
|
$500 | $9.99 | Must make 150 trades per quarter; $9.99 per trade for accounts that make under 150 trades per quarter. | Commission plus $45.00 |
Special request fees (paper statements, etc.). |
| Muriel Siebert, SiebertNet | None | $14.95 | $14.95 up to 1,000 shares, $0.015 per share over 1,000 shares | Minimum $37.50 per trade |
None |
| OptionsXpress |
None | $9.95 | None. $0.01/share over 1,000 shares. | No Extra Charge |
None |
| Scottrade | $500 | $7.00 | Some Foreign issues and Pink Sheets must be broker-assisted; additional fee for stocks under $1; Telephone (Touchtone IVR) trades $17.00 | $27.00 |
None |
|
ShareBuilder.com |
None | $4.00 | $4 trades automatically executed; Real-time trades $9.95; realtime trades over the phone $19.95 | N/A | None |
| TD Ameritrade | $2,000; ($1,000 IRAs) | $9.99 | None; $34.99 for telephone IVR trades | $44.99 |
$2-$5 charge for each U.S. mail statements and trade confirmations. |
| None | $4.95 | Additional $0.01 per share for stocks priced under $1. | $4.95 |
$50 annual inactivity fee for accounts under $2500 that have 12 months of no commission-charged trades. | |
| Zecco | None | $4.95 | A history of raising commissions, which were originally $0. | $19.99 |
None |
Some of the above discount stock brokers (namely, E*Trade, OptionsXpress, Scottrade, Sharebuilder, Tradeking, and Zecco) provide us with compensation for the referrals we send from this site. This compensation helps to offset the cost of keeping our information up-to-date and accurate, but does not change our recommendations.