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OptionsXpress vs Sharebuilder
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- Stocks and ETFs: $8.95
- Options (active traders): $12.95 for up to 10 contracts, $1.25/contract for over 10 contracts
- Options (non-active traders): $14.95 for up to 10 contracts, $1.50/contract for over 10 contracts
- Mutual Funds: $9.95
- Bonds: $5 per bond, $9.95 minimum
- Futures: 1-40 contracts $6.99; 41-100 contracts $5.99; 101-300 contracts $4.99; 301-1,000 contracts $3.99; 1,001 + contracts $2.99
- Options on Futures: 1-40 contracts $12.99; 41-100 contracts $8.99; 101-300 contracts $7.99; 301-1,000 contracts $6.99; 1,001 + contracts $5.99
- Covered Calls: $22.90 up to 10 contracts
- Penny Options: 1-10 contracts $4.95 flat; 10 + $0.50/contract
- Spreads, Straddles & Combos: 2-10 contracts - $12.95 Flat (active traders) $14.95 Flat (non-active traders); 10 + contracts - $1.25/contract (active traders); $1.50/contract (non-active traders)
- Investments: stocks, options, mutual funds, bonds, futures, options on futures, covered calls, ETFs
- Minimum to open OptionXpress account: $0 for cash account, $2,000 for margin account
- All OptionXpress fees
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- Stocks and ETFs Basic plan: $9.95 real-time trades; $4 per Automatic Investment
- Stocks and ETFs Advantage plan: $7.95 real-time trades; first 12 Automatic Investment per month included, $1 per additional investment
- Advantage plan comes with $12 monthly fee
- Options: Basic plan - $9.95 per online trade + $1.25 per contract; Advantage plan - $7.95 per online trade + $0.75 per contract
- Mutual funds: $19.95 for 170 no-load funds from leading no-load mutual fund families; 70 free funds including the ING mutual funds
- Investment products: stocks, options, mutual funds, ETFs
- Minimum to open Sharebuilder account: $0
- All Sharebuilder fees
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- Best customer service
- Many well-designed trading tools and cutting-edge trading technology
- Free streaming quotes
- $100 bonus for opening new account
- No fee IRA accounts
- Great research
- Free paper trading
- No money down to open new account
- Free account transfers
- Free instructor lead online classes
- Free broker-assisted trading
- Free dividend reinvestment (contact customer service)
- No platform fees
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- Very low Automatic Investing Plans costs
- Free dividend and capital gains reinvestment
- Ability to buy fractions of a stock
- $0 to open cash account, $2,000 for margin account
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- Higher than average commissions on stocks and ETFs
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- Real-time trades at $9.95 are expensive
- $0.007 per share surcharge on real-time trades on penny stocks (subject to a maximum of 15% of the principal amount of the trade, but no less than the base commission)
- Customers can't specify at what price investments with Automatic Investing Plans are bought/sold
- Very basic trading tools
- Customer service complaints
- Terrible executions
- Few mutual fund choices
- No beneficiary option (important for customers with families)
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OptionsXpress vs Sharebuilder: Comparison Summary
OptionsXpress (OptionsXpress Review)
and
ShareBuilder (ShareBuilder Review)
are very similarly priced for stocks and ETFs: $8.95 and $9.95 respectively.
ShareBuilder is one of the few brokerage firms offering cheap automatic investing plans. This is ideal for people that
don't believe that one could time the market or don't have time to follow it and are looking to dollar-cost-average their investments
by arranging to have a set amount invested daily, weekly, biweekly or monthly.
OptionsXpress offers one of the best customer services, trading tools and research in the industry.
Sharebuilder, on the other hand, is one of the worst in all these categories.
OptionsXpress offers free virtual trading environment, which is great for beginners who need to improve their skills as well as for
more advanced investors who want to test new strategies without risking money. Beginner investors
could also improve their investing knowledge by taking advantage of free online instructor lead classes.
Both companies don't charge annual IRA and IRA setup fees, and we rated OptionsXpress one of the
Best IRA Companies in 2012.
Out of these two online brokerage firms, OptionsXpress is by far the better choice and we recommend it to all investors.
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