Stock trade commissions declining, a buck a trade good for investors |
Loading ...One of the things I don’t like about Sharebuilder [review here], which offers making trades of partial stocks and that is advertised around this blog are the higher commission fees. The minimum fee, even if you are at their highest subscription level is $11.95 USD. If you add that to the monthly fees you pay as a subscriber ($20/month for the advantage, $12/month for the standard and free for the basic), which the paid plans are optional, it makes the deal far less attractive for trading smaller amounts of full/partial stock. This would be the catch, I guess, and the reason I haven’t traded any stocks I’ve bought through Sharebuilder.
Fortunately they have competition.
The News Tribune reports that there are other online options for buying stock with lower commission:
Genesis Securities LLC, a New York brokerage that executes trades for institutional investors, is launching a unit called Sogo-Invest that plans to charge between $1 and $3 a trade, with no minimum balances. This follows the launch of TradeKing late last year, a closely held brokerage in Boca Raton, Fla., that offers $4.95 trades, also with no minimums.
$1 to $3 per trade with no minimum balance? Wow, that’s reasonable. I wonder what the minimum orders, if any, are like? The Sogo Invest site seems to be targeting Sharebuilder, see the comparison page. They also have an affiliate program coming soon. I hope that’s something they are doing themselves and not Commission Junction like eBay is using.
Any readers check out this Sogo Invest site yet? Would love to hear all experiences about them: good, bad, indifferent. If Sharebuilder doesn’t lower their commission fees, I will strongly consider using Sogo instead. Hope the deal isn’t too good to be true.
Related Posts- Sharebuilder rocks!
- Zecco free trades going away, unless you have $2,500 minimum balance
- Paying first Zecco commissions, taking first loss
- $25 USD for friends/family to buy stock through Sharebuilder
- 2007 stock competition results and free real time stock quotes
- Couldn’t buy Xbox 360, could buy more GOOGle stock
http://www.sogoinvest.com/sogo/Home/Pricing.aspx
The free monthly plan (Bronze) has $3* trades but..
” * For trades more than 5000 shares, the extra share more than 5000 share will be charge $0.005 per share.”
Comment by Rob — July 12, 2006 @ 1:38 pm PST
Thanks for the feedback, Rob. I figure the fine print is out there somewhere.
Comment by TDavid — July 12, 2006 @ 2:01 pm PST
Do NOT use Sogo. When I opened my account, they held my funds hostage for 8 days, before I could even use it, despite using the ACH method to fund the account. Then, they started to test their ACH system, and WITHDREW funds from my bank account, which I did not authorize. They did replace it, after complaining. Today, I “purchased” a stock, and was prompted that the trade did not go through. I initiated the same trade again. Then according to my account, I had 2 trades that were pending. Hopefully, I was able to cancel the 2nd trade. However, it is now 5 and 1/2 hours later, and the first trade still cannot be reviewed. I do not even know what I paid for the stock. Their reply is that the system has been overloaded. After this length of time, you would think that the problem would be fixed. I have have numerous problems with them, but today was the worst. SOGO has got to GOGO!!!
Comment by Jeannette — October 23, 2006 @ 2:30 pm PST
Do they offer real time trading charts ?
Comment by Vitaliy Melnyk — October 24, 2006 @ 1:36 am PST
Enjoyed your post, David. I dont know much about Sogo Invest personally, but I would offer this piece of advice after ten years working for various online brokerages: watch your executions and fees. There truly is no free lunch, and it is always best to know how your brokerage is making their financial ends meet.
$1 to $3 per trade makes me wonder if you are getting stiffed on execution quality – whether Sogo is working to get you the very best possible price in the marketplace. It is not worth saving $2 on an entire order if you are buying stock higher than you need to or selling lower than you could.
Even if execution quality is good, check out Sogo fees and pricing structure. No minimums sounds nice, but you may be hit by inactivity fees if you do not trade enough, or you may not qualify for their best-advertised price unless you hit certain trading frequencies or carry a certain balance.
I should mention that I work as a marketing consultant for TradeKing, so of course I would like you to check us out. Our Commissions + Fees page (https://www.tradeking.com/PrivateView/services/Services/commissions.tmpl) explains everything, and I think you will find it’s a refreshing fair and simple deal. I would also refer you to our CEO’s blog (http://bigdog.financialblogs.com), the first for any CEO in financial services. In a recent post he explained how TradeKing can work on just $4.95 per trade (http://bigdog.financialblogs.com/post/blog/how_do_we_do_it_for_495.html). If you know what goes into our low pricing, and what frills are getting cut, you can enter into a relationship with a broker with a lot more confidence about the quality of their services.
Good luck, and happy trading.
Comment by Jude Stewart — November 3, 2006 @ 10:56 am PST