Before starting trading we need to open an account with good online brokers. This is an important decision because we need to find a broker with the lowest possible transaction fees as well as good execution performance.
For American investors we have several good brokers :
Scotttrade
www.scottrade.com
offers a 7$ a trade commission. For options you add an extra 1.50$ per contract
Ameritrade
www.ameritrade.com
offers a 10.99$ a trade
commission. For options you add an extra 1.50$ per contract
Interactivebrokers
www.interactivebrokers.com
is one
of our favorites. They don't have minimum transaction fees like most of other online brokers. Their fees are the lowest we could find so far. For example it costs 1 cent per share for US stocks and 2 cents per
share for Canadian shares. For options it is only 1$ per contract. For emini contract it is less than 2$ per contract. They have offices in USA, Canada and UK. They have an account called a Universal account that allows you to trade anything you want including options and futures
contract.
Optionsexpress
www.optionsexpress.com
offers a 14.95$
a trade commission for options you add an extra 1.50$ with an order with more than 10 contracts. You can get lower prices if you trade often in your account.
Of course those are fees if you don't place your trade through internet facilities or their own trading software you might have to download to your PC.
There plenty of others online brokers like Charles Schwab, Etrade, Harris Direct, TD Waterhouse, Merryl Lynch direct and Fidelity.
All mentioned online brokers can be considered as a reference and not necessarily a recommendation.
For Canadian investors we have the following choices of brokers:
QuestTrade
www.questtrade.com
offers a 9.95$ a trade commission. For
options you add an extra 1.50$ per contract. This is the fee for a CyberX2 account With a CyberX2 account there is a 25$ fee per month if you place less than 20 trades in a month, otherwise this 25$ fee is waved. If you open a Webtrader account the fee structure is a bit different click on the following link to find more
fees web trader
Those fees are a bit higher than CyberX2 but there is no fixed monthly fees.
All major banks have their online broker facilities :
TD bank through their TD Waterhouse affiliate company
Bank of Montreal
CIBC
Scotia bank
National bank
Royal Bank
Desjardins through their DISNAT affiliate company
All those online brokers charge basicly the same fees. It is 29$ minimum charge for 1,000 shares or less for a limit order. They also charge between 2$ and 3$ for each option contract on top of the regular commissions.
Of course you need to put your orders in through their internet facilities otherwise the fees will be higher.
This information does not constitute a recommendation, it is shown here for
information purposes only. Verify the fees structure carefully before opening a new account with any broker.
It is quite important that you use the services of a good online broker you can trust. You will save a huge amount of transactions fees compared to regular brokers. So take the time to check the website of each online broker representing any interest to you.
