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Sharebuilder vs Tradestation
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Tradestation vs Sharebuilder: Commissions and Investments 2012
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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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- 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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- Great trading platform
- Trading modeling functionality
- Lots of investment products to trade
- Active online community
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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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- 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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- 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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