|
|
ShareBuilder vs TradeMonster
|
|
|
- Stocks and ETFs: $7.50
- Stocks and ETFs broker assisted: $22.50
- Options: $0.50 per contract (minimum $12.50 for single leg orders and $15 minimim per spread for multi-leg orders)
- Futures: $1.50 per contract
- Options on Futures: $1.50 per contract (excluding exchange fees, NFA fees, overnight and platform fees as applicable)
- Mutual Funds: $15 to buy, $0 to sell
- Bonds: $15 (Municipal, Corporate, Agency, Treasury)
- Investments: stocks, options, mutual funds, bonds, ETFs
- Minimum to open tradeMONSTER account: $2,000
- All tradeMONSTER fees
|
- Real-time stock and ETF trades: $9.99
- Automatic Investments: Basic plan - $4 per investment
- Standard plan - $12/monthly fee for 6 automatic investments and each additional is $2
- Advantage plan - $20/monthly fee for 20 automatic investments and each additional is $1
- Options: Early Exercise - $30 per early exercise, no trade commission; Automatic Exercise -
$20 per automatic exercise, no trade commission
- 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
|
|
|
- Best margin rates
- Selling mutual funds is free
- No inactivity, account maintenance or hidden fees
- No-fee IRAs
- Free trading simulator (virtual trading)
- Lots of learning materials for beginner investors, including webinars
- Very good customer service
|
- 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
|
|
|
- Additional 1.5 cents per share surcharge on extended hours trades
- Additional $0.0005 per share on the entire order for any stocks priced less than $1
- Trading tools could be a bit hard to master for beginners
|
- Real-time trades at $9.95 are expensive
- $0.007 per share surcharge on real-time trades on penny stocks (stocks under $1)
- 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)
|
ShareBuilder vs TradeMonster: Comparison Summary
TradeMonster (TradeMonster Review) and
ShareBuilder (ShareBuilder Review)
are suited for two different types of investors. ShareBuilder is one of the few
brokerage firms offering automatic investing plans. This is ideal for people that don't believe that you 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.
TradeMonster is great for customers who are looking to invest in mutual funds and is one of the
best for beginner investor brokerages.
Because TradeMonster has no IRA or inactivity fees, it is also one of the
Best IRA Firms.
We also encourage investors to research our picks for
Best Online Brokerage Companies in 2012.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|