Ultra- Inexpensive Stock Trading
Written: Aug 31 '00
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Inexpensive Rates; No Minimum Balance to Open an Account
Cons: Not Enough Tools; Response Time is Slow
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| Bryan_Carey's Full Review: SureTrade |
Launched in 1997, SureTrade is an on-line brokerage service that currently has over 550,000 customers. It's known for having the lowest fees of any major on-line broker.
Service Charges:
If I had to pinpoint one area where SureTrade beats the competition, it would have to be in the area of service fees. The rates are as low as $7.95 for a market order trade, or $9.95 for a limit order. If you make your trade via a touch- tone telephone, you will have to add $4.00 to these rates. Also, penny stocks (those priced under $2.00 per share) will cost you an additional $5.00 per trade.
In addition to stocks, you can also purchase mutual funds through SureTrade for a small fee of .7 percent of the principal balance, with a minimum charge of $25 and a maximum charge of $149. These fees aren't terrible, but if you are interested in buying a no- load mutual fund, your best bet is to buy the fund directly from the mutual fund company and aviod paying any fees at all.
If you choose to setup a margin account, SureTrade will charge you a margin interest rate ranging from 7.75 percent to 8.5 percent, depending on the size of your loan. Again, these rates are the lowest among all on-line brokers.
SureTrade also offers Checkwriting, but this is only offered to customers who have an equity balance greater than $150,000 (Guess what? I'm not one of them!). And you can purchase stock options for a flat fee of $28.95.
Cash margins do not earn any interest with SureTrade, if the balance is under $2,000. If it's over $2,000, you will get a small amount of interest, comparable to what you would get with a bank savings account, which is around 3 to 4 percent.
One other nice feature with SureTrade is that there is no minimum balance required to open an account. So, if you've got your eyes on a $2.00 stock, but you have only a few hundred dollars, no problem! Just send in your money and you can start trading.
Tools:
SureTrade does offer a few good interactive tools to help you invest. The stock finder, for instance, is very useful. You are presented with 15 different financial categories (Earnings per Share, Return on Equity, etc)and you can select the ones you wish to search on, then enter a range of values. SureTrade's stock finder will then go out and find the stocks that match your criteria.
SureTrade also has a learning center, full of definitions and explanations of different investment options, to give the novice investor a better understanding of what different investments are all about. There is also a retirement planner, a college planner, and a few others, but most of these tools are simply links into other websites, like Quicken. I think SureTrade could improve this area with more inter- active tools, such as advice on savings, how much you can afford to invest, debt reduction, etc.
Service:
SureTrade offers a toll- free line and live, on- line chat assistance. If you call SureTrade using the toll- free number, you can expect to be on hold a few minutes. The chat assistance also takes a few minutes. In early June, SureTrade immproved the speed of its website and, supposedly, the speediness of service. The website does seem a little faster than it was before, but I haven't noticed much improvement in the response time for questions.
Final Thoughts:
Compared to other on-line brokerage services, SureTrade is a pretty good company. Its website isn't very eye- catching, and the service can be a little slow at times. But the main reason to use SureTrade is its low fees. These low service rates are SureTrade's number one selling point and they will undoubtedly help SureTrade attract more and more customers in the future.
So, what are you waiting for? Just send in a little cash, then start clicking your way to inexpensive stock trading. Ready, set, go!
Recommended:
Yes
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