Scottrade vs Tradestation: Trading Fees and Investments 2012
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- Stocks and ETFs: $7
- Stocks and ETFs broker assisted: $27
- Stocks and ETFs interactive voice response (IVR) telephone system: $17
- Options: $7 plus $1.25 per contract
- Mutual Funds: 2,800+ free mutual funds, $17 for others
- CDs, OTC Secondary Corporates, OTC Secondary Municipals, U.S. Treasury Bills, Notes, Bonds and STRIPS, New Corporate Offerings: subject to a markup or markdown
- Listed Corporate Bonds: $35 fee plus $3 per bond (minimum investment $1,000)
- Unit Investment Trusts (UIT): $50 liquidation fee
- Foreign Stocks Transferring In or Out: $60 per transaction
- Investment products: stocks, options, mutual funds, CDs, munis, U.S. Treasury, Canadian and foreign stocks, ETFs
- Minimum to open Scottrade account: $500 for a cash account, $2,000 for a margin account
- All Scottrade fees
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- Stocks and ETFs Flat-Rate Plan: 1 to 9 trades/month - $9.99/trade; 10 to 29 trades/month - $7.99/trade; 30 or more trades/month - $6.99/trade
- Stocks and ETFs Per-Share Plan: first 500 shares $0.01 per share, $0.006 per share thereafter, $1 minimum per trade
- Options: $1 per contract with no ticket charge and no minimum
- Futures: 25¢ - $1.20 per side, per contract + exchange, regulatory & overnight fees
- Mutual funds: $14.95
- Bonds: $14.95 plus $5 per bond
- T-Bills: equities - $50, futures - $10
- OTCBB: $9.99 (100,000 share position maximum)
- Pink Sheet Stocks: $9.99 (100,000 share position maximum)
- Investment products: stocks, options, mutual funds, bonds, futures, T-Bills, OTCBB, Pink Sheet Stocks, Forex, ETFs
- Minimum to open Tradestation account: $5,000 for non-daytraders and $30,000 for daytraders
- All Tradestation fees
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- No inactivity, account maintenance or hidden fees
- No-fee IRAs
- One of the highest customer satisfaction ratings according to JD Power and Associates
- 500+ local branches
- Great support for beginner investors with massive amount of educational resources
- Online user community
- Banking services: savings, CDs, money market and checking accounts (visa check card and first order of checks is free)
- No ACAT fee
- Only $500 minimum to open account
- Free real-time streaming quotes and charts
- Free dividend reinvestment for mutual funds (but not for stocks)
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- Great trading platform
- Trading modeling functionality
- Lots of investment products to trade
- Active online community
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- Additional 0.5% of the principal value commission for stocks under $1
- No electronic withdrawals (but can use debit card or checks)
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- High stock and ETF commissions
- Direct routing up to 5000 shares is no additional charge, $.005 per share thereafter
- $99.95 fee to use TradeStation Platform if not traded at least 5,000 shares in previous month
- Lots of fees for market data
- $35 annual IRA fee
- Steep learning curve: trading platform is too complicated for beginner investors
- Minimum amount to open account is $5,000 for non-daytraders and $30,000 for daytraders
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Scottrade vs Tradestation: Comparison Summary
Tradestation's (Tradestation Review) flat-rate commission plan
is more expensive than Scottrade's (Scottrade Review):
$10 versus $7 on stock/ETF trades. Tradestation charges $15 on mutual fund transactions. With Scottrade, investors could get over
2,800 free NTF mutual funds and buy all others for $17. Tradestation charges additional commission on each share over 5,000 and
Scottrade does the same on penny stocks (stocks under $1).
Both firms don't have account maintenance, hidden and inactivity fees as well as surcharges on extended hours trading. There are no
IRA fees at either company and Scottrade has one of the
Top IRA Accounts.
The company is also one of the Best Brokers for Beginner Investors,
offering lots of learning materials, easy to use trading tools and helpful online trader community.
Scottrade is one of our Top Online Brokers in 2012.
Because of much lower commissions and no trading platform fee, we strongly
recommend Scottrade to most investors. Very active traders will definitely be better off with Tradestation.
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