Comments on: Zecco vs TradeKing Discount Brokerage Comparison Review

By: Laundromat Business

Laundromat Business — Fri, 16 Sep 2011 22:01:15 +0000

Another broker to consider is Interactive Brokers. They seem to have a good platform for high volume trading including currencies now. Has anyone used that service?

By: Steve Russell

Steve Russell — Thu, 01 Sep 2011 20:52:00 +0000

Does anyone have feedback to offer on either Lightspeed or Just2Trade? I think I will always keep my Fidelity account for the research tools, but I would like to have an active trading account with lower commissions.

By: john

john — Tue, 30 Aug 2011 14:24:40 +0000

I have had many issues with Trade King. Most notably, they give me incorrect information on my account (telling me I had positions I didn’t and that I did not have positions I thought I did have). I therefore thought I was in trades unknowingly and rushed to get out and took a loss. Their system later adjusted itself but they would not refund me for the losses I had incurred from their errors. They told me it is in their disclaimers that they are not held accountable for these things. They later made a mistake where they told me my account value was much higher and then corrected themselves. They obviously did not allow me to have the money they mistakenly told me I had. These are major issues.

By: braden

braden — Sun, 14 Aug 2011 20:49:45 +0000

I applied to both TradeKing and Zecco. I had better experience than you. But this is 2.5 years after your review. I just opened them both up. I had TradeKing first and got very frustrated with depositing my first check and I found Zecco was quicker, easier, and I didnt have to mail or fax any documents. I have yet to trade with either. But Zecco application was much easier/quicker.

By: Laundromat Business

Laundromat Business — Fri, 05 Aug 2011 22:49:26 +0000

I considered using Zecco for currency trading but never got it up and running. Has anyone else used Zecco successfully for currency trading? Is so, how do you like?

By: Mike

Mike — Thu, 07 Apr 2011 03:35:24 +0000

Steve,

Just checked out Wells Trade and I think I’m going to give it a try. Can’t beat 100 free trades, just need to keep $100.00 in the checking acct to waive all the fees. Thanks for the heads up

Mike

By: servusdei

servusdei — Wed, 16 Mar 2011 14:36:34 +0000

While shopping for lower cost brokers in the process of switching out of Zecco, I found a couple more possibilities for even lower commission costs. One is Lightspeed Trader, which charges only $0.0045 per share, which means that 100 shares of stocks will only cost $0.45 in commission, quite a significant saving compared to brokers that charges a flat rate per trade. They claim to offer the lowest commissions of all brokers on earth. It seems to be the best option for small investors, who can even trade in small amounts frequently without incurring excessive commissions. I think I will give this a try, so I would love to hear from anyone who has used this broker.

For big investors with over $1M to deposit, Vanguard might be the better option. They offer unlimited free vanguard ETF trades and 25 free stock trades per year (then $2/trade after) for anyone with over $1 million invested. Problem is that this means only about 2 free trades per month, which can be exceed easily. But for traders with over $1M and trade in big amounts, Vanguard could be the cheapest option possible.

I would love to hear if anyone has tried either of these or have better ideas still.

By: Steve Russell

Steve Russell — Fri, 04 Mar 2011 21:23:54 +0000

The only money Wells Trade keeps on the sidelines is the five bucks I keep in each account to keep them open.

The $25,000 that gets me the hundred free trades is in stocks and bonds, in the brokerage account. Actually, I’m split into two accounts with my wife so I can get 200 free trades. Right now, I’m in the ninth month and I’ve burned all my freebies in one account but have over 30 freebies left in the other one.

By: servusdei

servusdei — Thu, 03 Mar 2011 15:42:05 +0000

Thanks Steve for the tip! I think I will give Just2Trade a try and let everyone know how it works out later. It seems to be the cheapest option available right now. For a passive trader making just 2 trades per month, that is a saving of $58.80 a year compared to Zecco’s raised commission rate of $4.95 per trade. For an active trader making 10 trades a month, that would translate to a saving of $294 a year, which is significant.

Wells Trade is no good for me because they pay almost nothing for the $25,000 cash you must deposit with them, so at just 5% interest rate from risk free bonds that means you are paying $1,250 annual commission, which is very bad.

By: Steve Russell

Steve Russell — Thu, 03 Mar 2011 15:19:07 +0000

Cheap alternatives:

Just2Trade advertises $2.50 a trade. I have never tried them, so I would love to hear from somebody who has.

Wells Trade offers 100 free trades with a linked PMA account containing $25,000 total, which means a savings and a checking account all linked with the brokerage account. Since I’ve never used a bank account in my life except during the time I worked for a bank, I just keep five bucks in each account and use the checking account to suck money into or out of the brokerage account.

Wells Trade’s website is a bit clunky and their research tools used to be absolutely useless (they’ve recently gone a little more upscale), but if you are coming from Zecco you’ll think you died and went to heaven.
If you burn your 100 free trades before your anniversary, I think they are $5.95. Don’t rely on that, but I know it’s less than $7.