EVEN BLOODHOUNDS DON'T TRACK THIS EASILY
Written: May 08 '01
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Pros: quick trades, small commission, many features
Cons: glues you to your seat
The Bottom Line: HIGHLY RECOMMENDED because of the great features, friendly customer service (when needed) and reasonable rates.
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| Donnie013's Full Review: Datek Online |
Bloodhounds? Actually, I'm talking about tracking. Stock tracking!
Last year, my husband and I decided to sign up for Datek Online. At the time, we chose NOT to sign up for "day trading" but only for the use of their "streamer" option. We wanted to carefully check out Datek, Ameritrade and E*trade before committing to anything.
At the time, it was great (still is). (The only difference now is that you can only get the streamer if you have an active account.)
The streamer gives you second by second updates of what your stocks are doing in the market. While other sites only offer updates every 20 minutes (and they call this real-time quotes), you can actually sit back and watch Datek in work as you see, first hand, the quotes change before your eyes. It's amazing.
After a period six months, we chose to finally go all the way and open an account for day trading.
I know we have our Ameritrade and E*trade sites, but after checking them out, I realized that Datek was cheaper in their commissions and offered better options.
First of all, Datek guarantees that if your buy order cannot be completed within 60 seconds, you will not be charged the 9.99 commission fee. Yes, I said 9.99.
The paperwork we received from Ameritrade and E*trade said their trades were 12.99. (I couldn't understand this contradiction as their ads on TV mentioned no more than 8.99 a commission. Their brochures said nothing about such a small fee)
Anyway, getting back on track:
The only confusing part of opening our Datek account was some of the wording on their site. It leads you to believe that you must fill out the paperwork ONLINE and then on the hardcopy you receive in the mail. THIS IS NOT TO BE DONE as we found out the hard way. You fill out EITHER, not both. (Doing bother opens two accounts in error)
Once you open your account, Datek will give you 10 free beginning trades. (Because of the confusion we encountered and the fact that it took three days to straighten out, Datek gave us an additional 10 free trades)
There is NO registration fee, no minimum balance required and no minimum or maximum trading allowance. Your account is YOURS to do with as you please and as often.
The first thing we did once our account was open, was to "personalize" our streamer page. What this means is that in addition to adding the stocks you want to "track" daily, you can customize the colors and other options offered, like a sound alert should your stock suddenly become active, a window insert where you can watch the individual buys and sells (called the Last Sale insert), a color coded bar indicating an up or down trend, and a graph line. You can change the colors of the page to suit your own liking (while that doesn't seem important, some people do get headaches by the constant green on black).
On the streamer, you can add or delete stocks as often as you please. You can edit the page content to display this moving chart to suit your needs.
When a stock is on the down trend, a red box appears around the value. If it's an up trend, a green box appears. And finally, off to the right side of the streamer, you can add the volume share box indicating how the stock is moving.
Okay, so now we have set up our streamer page with the stocks we plan on tracking. What now? How do we about buying or selling? That's a snap!
Going back to our "home page" on Datek, on the popdown menu, click on "quotes and trades". This takes you directly to your buy and sell page. Just type in the symbol of the desired stock, the amount in question (ex: GE 500 shares) then click the buy or sell box and you're on your way. You can even do a delayed buy or sell at a set figure.
Once the buy or sell has been completed, you will received an email notification. A few days later (depending on your mail service), you will receive a hard copy statement of that activity on your account. Once a month, you receive your monthly statement with your cash flow balance and a summary of your tradings. What better way is there to keep track of your investment? I haven't found any.
While you're on this "home page" you will be able to keep track of your portfolio and visualize your constantly-changing financial [pie]chart.
Is this site secure? You betcha! With many sites, you can program in your password for quick entry. Not so with Datek. It won't accept it. If your password is not typed in manually, you don't get it! Period!
Datek makes it really easy to keep track of your stocks and buy and sell as you feel the need. One thing especially great about Datek is that you can buy and sell the SAME stock as often as you wish. When I called E*trade and Ameritrade I was told that they limited that kind of action. (Things may have changed since then, but that was the main reason we chose Datek)
Do we really find it necessary to glue ourselves to our seats in order to make money? Not really. The first few months we did, however, but after carefully watching the "latest sale" page, we noticed that the most trading is done in the early morning and late afternoon hours.
I will admit that in the beginning, we lost a bit of money. But we were learning. Since Christmas, we have now put our portfolio in the black.
Are we pros? Heck no! But Datek has made us feel like we really know what we're doing.
Have we made our fortune yet? No, we didn't make our millions, yet, but, hey! Doing business on Datek with their reasonable rates, anything's possible!
Recommended:
Yes
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Epinions.com ID:
Donnie013
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 - Top 200 |
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Member: Margaret Brennan
Location: Punta Gorda Isles, FL
Reviews written: 455
Trusted by: 288 members
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