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USAA
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USAA Brokerage vs Choicetrade
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Choicetrade vs USAA Brokerage: Commissions, Fees and Investments 2012
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- Stocks and ETFs (not direct access): $5 per trade
- Stocks and ETFs (direct access): $0.0025 per share, $1.50 minimum per trade
- Stocks and ETFs (broker-assisted): $10 per trade
- Options: $5 plus $0.15 per contract
- Mutual funds: $25 per trade
- Investment products: stocks, options, mutual funds, Forex, ETFs
- Minimum to open Choicetrade account: $0 for cash account, 2,000 for margin account
- All Choicetrade fees
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- Stocks and ETFs: $8.95 for Gold members and $5.95 for Platinum members (an additional $0.01 per share and $0.005 is charged for each share over 1,000 for Gold and Platinum, respectively)
- Stocks and ETFs broker assisted: $50 (an additional $0.005 per share is charged for each share over 1,000)
- Options: $8.95 + $0.75 per contract for Gold members and $5.95 + $0.75 per contract for Platinum members
- Transaction-Fee No-Load Funds: $45 minimum
- All Listed Corporate Bonds: $25 plus $3 per bond
- U.S. Treasury Securities at Auction: $45
- Investment products: stocks, options, mutual funds, bonds, U.S. Treasury Securities, ETFs
- Minimum to open USAA Brokerage account: $0
- All USAA Brokerage fees
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Choicetrade vs USAA Brokerage: Pros
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- Direct access trading with lowest per share commissions
- Very low flat-rate commissions
- Powerful trading platforms
- No account minimum, maintenance or inactivity fees
- Free paper trading
- Investor community
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- No account maintenance, inactivity or hidden fees
- Good banking services
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Choicetrade vs USAA Brokerage: Cons
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- While web-based trading platform with delayed quotes is free, more advanced platforms and streaming quotes are not: web-based Choicestreamer is $14.95/month,
ChoiceTrader Direct pro is $49/month, Choicetrader Select with eSignal is $126/month
- Extended hours stock trades have $0.005 per share surcharge
- No penny stock surcharge up to 500,000 shares. Over 500,000 shares, add 1% of the total dollar value of the order to the normal commission of $5 per trade
to all stock orders of more than 500,000 shares
- $2 surcharge on bulletin board and pink sheet stock trades
- High mutual fund commissions
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- Higher than average commissions for Gold Members
- Surcharge of $0.01 per share and $0.005 is charged for each share over 1,000 for Gold and Platinum, respectively
- Poor trading platform
- Few educational resources
- Few research services
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Choicetrade or USAA Brokerage: Comparison Summary
USAA Brokerage (USAA Brokerage Reviews 2012)
offers much more expensive commissions than
Choicetrade (Choicetrade Reviews 2012):
$8.95 for stock and ETF trades versus $5 per trade at the competitor.
With Choicetrade, active traders could get even lower than $5 commissions by going with a per-share pricing plan.
Choicetrade and USAA Brokerage don't have IRA fees (annual and setup), but they were not included in our
Best Traditional IRA 2012 list.
ChoiceTrade is not very friendly to beginner investors, even though it offers helpful online trader community - most of its customers
are experienced traders. For anyone new to investing, we recommend
to check out our Best Brokerages For Beginners list.
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USAA
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