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Thread: Has Anyone Tried Scottrade??

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    Newbie K's Avatar
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    Has Anyone Tried Scottrade??

    I want to start investing in stocks and was wondering if anyone has tried Scottrade? Anything good or bad?

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    Senior Member commando's Avatar
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    Default Re: Has Anyone Tried Scottrade??

    Hi K! Scottrade isn't bad. They do have some good tools, as well as the advantage of having many branch offices if you ever need that. I've used several online brokerages and the best one that I found was SuccessTrade www.lowtrades.com . The commission is $5.00/trade, and they have superb customer support. I have never had a problem with them.

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    Member dlunatics's Avatar
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    Default Re: Has Anyone Tried Scottrade??

    I use Scottrade. Very good. $7.00 dollar trades at market. $12.00 if you use limit orders. What are you looking to do? Day trade or long term trades?

    Be very careful day trading. I started with $26,000 got it up to $70,000 and now back down to $20,000. Made a few bad trades in fast moving stocks like TZOO, GOOG, NVEC, SINA. Lost $13,000 in one day. OPPs!!!

    Here is a site that will help you trade these fast moving stock. They move from $2 in a day to $20 in a day. He tells you at what price to buy and when to get out. This guy Turned $11,000 to 18 million back in the bubble days of the fast moving internet stocks like YHOO, INTC, MSFT and so on. Go to www.chartpattern.com. You can sigh up for free for 3 weeks. Then if you want it is $56.00 or so a month. I use it, but sometimes get greedy and stay in the stocks he has on the site for to long and get clobbered.

    Right now is not a good time to go long stocks. Markets have had a big run after PREZ election. I am in gold and silver stocks for now. Oil stocks should be going up also this coming week. The weak dollar is driving gold, silver and oil up. This week will be slow due to the Holiday coming up. After a corretion in the DOW, NAZ and S$P the markets should be ready to move higher again untill the 1st of the year. Be ready for the move and try the site I recommened. Do exactly what the site says and you will do well. DO NOT GET GREDDY LIKE ME or you will get your head handed to you BIG TIME !!!

    I am going to short some stocks this week. That means make money on the way down.

    Here is a good radio station to listen to also. It is out of PHX, AZ. 1510 KFNN. You can get it online. At 6-9 good show in the morning about finance. Then 1-2 pm Cramer, 2-3 pm Stock Doctor, and 3-4 Moe on the market. Learn a lot from them.

    Need to sign up with scottrade and be ready for the next run in the market. Do it next week. It might take a day or so to get set up and learn the tools for trading.
    ROCK ON !!!

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    Featured Member discretedancer's Avatar
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    Default Re: Has Anyone Tried Scottrade??

    I use Domini investments...www.domini.com - good rates of return, and it's a company that only invests in environmentally/socially responsible businesses, so my money follows my ethics.

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    God/dess RedZ28's Avatar
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    Default Re: Has Anyone Tried Scottrade??

    I've used them for years. Very reliable. I don't do very much day trading though.

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    Senior Member commando's Avatar
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    Default Re: Has Anyone Tried Scottrade??

    Scottrade charges $12 for limit orders? Go with lowtrades.com, like I said, $5 per trade and it doesn't matter if it's limit, stop, trailing stop/limit, market, OTC:BB, Pink Sheets, whatever. They also give you level II, which is very good if you plan on any kind of short term or day trading.

    Also, there are lots of mutual funds that are "socially responsible", and actually several of them do quite well.

    One more thing, if you are investing in individual stocks, it doesn't make any difference what the market in general is doing. I make money consistently in stocks, and I don't know what the market is doing, nor do I care... (and I'm a stockbroker) You should be positioned to make money regardless of what the Dow is doing, to hell with it. oops, sorry everyone, hope you understand me, I'm a bit tipsy as I'm writing this!

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    Banned Melonie's Avatar
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    Default Re: Has Anyone Tried Scottrade??

    At one time ScottTrade was the "cream of the crap" in regard to low commission online brokers. However, as commando points out, there are now even cheaper online brokerage services available. But ScottTrade probably does still offer the best combination of timely stock info, timely trade execution etc. as long as you're talking about plain vanilla buy and sell orders for stocks listed on US and Canadian exchanges. And ScottTrade does offer very good website features and very good paper transaction record follow-up, which is important when it comes time to file income tax.

    A very important point about any of the plain vanilla online brokerage services which others are making in a roundabout way is that these services do NOT offer any advice whatsoever in regard to the apparent wisdom of your trades given current market conditions. Thus if you put in a buy or sell order these services will simply execute it. But this also means that your gains or losses will not be tempered by the wisdom of an experienced stockbroker (which can be an advantage as well as a disadvantage), making your own financial judgements the sole driving force for your investment portfolio. This can result in trades which are big winners, but can just as easily result in trades which are big losers if your financial judgement isn't in sync with the market.

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    Newbie K's Avatar
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    Default Re: Has Anyone Tried Scottrade??

    I really haven't had much experience with investing.

    However, I just want to invest in regular stocks . . . nothing that is really out there. I also want a brokerage that is inexpensive and dependable.

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    God/dess montythegeek's Avatar
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    Default Re: Has Anyone Tried Scottrade??

    To give better advice it would be helpful to have more information. The answers are more complicated than the specific questions you asked because of stuff we do not know.

    I was looking at the history of your posts trying to figure out where you lived and noted your first post was associated with an inheritance. Is your investing associated with that being paid? If that is the case one aspect is you do not want to invest the money in one fell swoop but over the course of a quarter.

    Do you plan on actively trading or putting it away and trading less frequently? If you want to trade a lot you want to go to a real-low-cost broker like some people have mentioned or if you plan to trade a few times a year a Scottrade or Charles Scwab would do fine.

    You seem to not be an overly knowledgeable investor. If so the last thing you want to do is trade a lot--your odds of success then are not that great. Not that you will blow it all, but that a better choice would be to invest 1/3rd of the money in a S&P index fund. 1/3rd in a good "growth and income" mutual fund 1/6th in a balanced foreign focussed mutual fund investing world wide and the remaining 1/6th in a bond fund.

    Circumstances are going to move these shares around but the first 2 are going to be cheap to manage in terms of commissions etc.. Do not go into it assuming you have to start out picking stock A and stock B...L or Z and have to pay commisions on each of those. The mutual fund route does this for you and can be done inexpensively.

    The safe way to balance risks is not to get in over your head too soon. Start listening on the radio to investment advice shows. The radio shows focussing on business are often much more advanced than you appear to be (Cramer etc--not bad people, but over your head today). A Bob Brinker Money talk or Suzie Orman is more your speed by appearances at this stage. If you do think you know what you are doing or really like one stock or one area (like high tech) go ahead and buy some but keep the risk down by only putting less than 5% of your money in it.

    You have a lot of learning to do and your best course is to keep the bulk of the money in a safe place where it will grow until you have done that learning. Safe does not mean bank CD's. An S&P index fund is going to do like the stock market as a whole does--remember sometimes doing average can be a real good thing when one of the possibilities is loosing your shirt.

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    Newbie K's Avatar
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    Smiley Re: Has Anyone Tried Scottrade??

    I am looking to invest some of my earnings on an infrequent basis (every 1-2 months). I do not plan on doing day trading but more of a buy, hold and sell strategy. A girl at work suggested that I read Value Line magazine.

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    Veteran Member HoneyHITZ's Avatar
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    Default Re: Has Anyone Tried Scottrade??

    dont know if this is any help, but my husband uses Scottrade and he likes it... i mean he hasnt complained, and TRUST me i would hear him complaining if he didnt like it, lol

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