Customer need to select the site that is best for them. Traders have requirements in a site, while investors have other requirements.
Although most sites are geared to general securities and commodities, however customers may have special needs for the types of products they trade, and the markets in which they trade. For example I use Fidelity for investing. Scottrade and TDAmeritrade for equities trading and ThinkorSwim for option trading
.
It seems that the most popular firms for on-line investing/trading all of which provide excellent platforms and services are; Scottrade; Chas.Schwab; TDAmeritrade; Fidelity; E-Trade, Vanguard, T.Rowe Price and Thinkorswim. In your situation, you may be best served if you select Scottrade or Ameritrade
I would recommend TD Ameritrade OR Schwab for better personal service than Fidelity, but you will be able to set up and buy stocks for your IRA without any hassle. Keep in mind there are contribution limits for IRA contributions. So a substantial amount of money to you may not equal what the requirements are for an IRA.
The question is how much is "a great amount of money"?
Schwab has the better research center, many brick and mortar offices, and will assign a personal representative depending on your assets level.
Scottrade has a good research center and is a little cheaper per trade and also has brick and mortar offices.
If neither has physical offices in your area, Fidelity has a wider range of mutual funds available under their own name. Vanguard funds are more no-load.
If doing individual trades with little contact or research, maybe e-trade, or Bank of America bought Merrill Lynch(called it Merrill Edge now) and has cheap trades and lots of contacts and is adequate to deal with also as a one place to do everything but savings accounts as none pay real interest.
http://www.fool.com/how-to-invest/broker...
Schwab is best for active traders
They have a day trading tool and stochastics software
Research Reports for many stocks
Schwab, Credit Suisse, Ned Davis, Argus, S&P, Reuter's, Market Edge Second Opinion?
For many stocks, Schwab summarizes as current performance rating overall, Fundamentals, Valuation, Momentum, Risk
Many no fee mutual funds at Schwab.
The more you have and more you wish to trade and more you want to research on your own, the more Schwab is the best choice.
Smaller accounts with low activity can be anywhere.
I have worked with Schwab, Scottrade, Fidelity, Merrill Edge.
They are all good brokerage companies, I used Scottrade and Fidelity and I am very pleaseed
I have a full time job and a great amount of money saved. I want to open up an IRA and buy some stocks through a brokerage account. My investments are for the long term, and won't be for trading often. I had searching brokerages so far, and I found a few that I'm interested. Those are Fidelity Investments, Charles Schawb, E-Trade, Scottrade, and vanguard. I just be opening one from those 5 brokerages. I just want to know which brokerage has a good customer service reputation, I don't care if I have to pay $10 dollars for a trade as long it serves their customers well, and they don't play with my IRA account and investments? any experiences that you had with any these brokerages are welcome.
