Ask HN: What do you use to buy and sell stocks? I signed up for sharebuilder a long time ago and it pretty much sucks. I've only been using it because of inertia while waiting for Robinhood to finally launch. My personal needs aren't huge, but I'm just sick of dealing with Sharebuilder. What do you use and what do you like most about it? |
Sharebuilder is horrible. Will check out Schwab thanks!
If you are an infrequent trader the cost per transaction is less important, you just don't want any monthly fees. I personally use thinkorswim (which is part of TD Ameritrade). But I'm sure scottrade, fidelity, etrade would be fine too.
Finally there is always the question if you want to pick stocks yourself. As Warren Buffett has often said, if you don't want to dedicate the time and effort you should buy an s&p 500 index fund. He recommends vanguards VFIAX or you could buy the ETF VOO. For most people this will do a lot better over time than picking stocks yourself!
It's super easy and fast to transfer money between BOA account and the Merrill Edge. This is the killer feature. There are limits but its faster than other brokerage accounts to get money in and out of your brokerage accounts.
Depending on how much money you have in your combined BOA account + Merril Edge accounts. They will give X number of free trades a month. The highest is 100 free trades a month.
If you have over 100k combined (brokerage + checking + savings), they upgrade you to preferred rewards platinum. Biggest benefit you can use any non-BOA atm in the US with no fees.
I quite like Google Finance for monitoring stocks and the portfolios, but god, what an awful, completely ignored mobile app! It won't even sync data. The desktop version is so simplistic and nicer in comparison.
Anyone know of third-party apps that read Google Finance data?
My stocks are predominantly in Fidelity because I have their 2%-back-on-everything AMEX, which rolls into my Fidelity Brokerage account. $7.95 trades which I think is pretty standard for mega-bank retail trades without trade volume or account balance discounts.
My only other interaction with them is when they send me new cards to activate, like if my card is going to expire or they want to issue me a new number. Activation is all automated and takes 2 minutes.
Fidelity brokerage I think is a separate service organization, and have had no problems with them either about account questions.
Portfolio analysis terrible – For example on a stocks page there isn't even an easy way to see existing positions, let alone my historical purchases like when, how much and what price. It's just "here's this stocks history" not "here's this stocks history including YOU'RE history with this stock.
And on and on like that.
I'm just sick of using software that feels like it stopped improving 5-10 years ago....and figured that has to be more out there.