Just2trade Review: Commissions, Fees and Investments (2012)
- Stocks and ETFs: $2.50 (with surcharge for extended hours trading)
- Options: $2.50 plus $0.50 per contract
- Mutual funds: $2.50
- Investment products: stocks, options, mutual funds, bonds and fixed income securities, ETFs
- Minimum to open Just2trade account: $2,500
- All Just2trade fees
Just2trade clearly states on the website that its services are for investors with at least two years of trading
experience, with knowledge of trading terminology and personal account management.
Clients are required to maintain at least $2,500 minimum account balance at all times.
Who is Just2Trade?
Success Trade Securities was founded in 1999 and serves as the parent company for three online investing sites –
Just2Trade, Successtrade and LowTrades. Success Trade Securities is a member of FINRA and SIPC.
We opted for opening an IRA account with Just2Trade. Since it's not one of the 3 accounts that could be opened online, we had to print out
long application form and fill it out on paper. Then we scanned the form and emailed it to Just2Trade. No response. After a few more
tries and back-and-forth with Just2Trade customer service, we (not customer service) figured out that the file we were sending was
too big for Just2Trade email service. Turns out, it was enough to scan just 2 first pages of the application form - not all 15 of them
(why did they put so many additional there and never mentioned it?). We were also informed by customer service that we needed to send
them a copy of id - again, it is mentioned nowhere when applying.
Eager to try Just2Trade in action, and, after reading that ACH setup takes 10 business days (!) to complete
(compare it with Scottrade's instant ACH setup), we decided to wire our funds. We followed all the instructions sent to us
by Just2Trade in the email. Two days later (wire transfer is supposed to take a few hours), we contacted the company about the missing funds.
Customer support was responsive only about 50% of the time (the other 50% we had to send second email) and not very helpful.
Eventually, days later, it turned out that we were supposed to mention for which year was the IRA deposit on the wire transfer form
- this was never mentioned in company's wire transfer instructions. It took 10 days in total before money appeared on the account.
This was the worst account opening and funding process of all online brokers. Customer service was one of the worst too.
Just2trade.com trading tools are pretty good, including some neat Technical Analysis tools
such as Stock Alerts,
Stock Screeners, Technical Insight, and Daily Technical Events. With Stock Alerts you could set
trading criteria on the stock
and receive email notification when these criteria are met. With Stock Screener you could search for stocks that
match your parameters, like industry, trading volume, PE and more.
- Individual (U.S. Domestic and Foreign)
- Joint with Rights of Survivorship (U.S. Domestic and Foreign)
- Joint Tenants in Common (U.S. Domestic and Foreign)
- Custodial Account (U.S. Domestic)
- Traditional IRA (U.S. Domestic)
- Roth IRA (U.S. Domestic)
- Rollover IRA (U.S. Domestic)
- SEP IRA (U.S. Domestic)
- Corporate (U.S. Domestic and Foreign)
- LLC (U.S. Domestic and Foreign)
- Investment Club (U.S. Domestic)
- Trust (U.S. Domestic and Foreign)
- Partnership (U.S. Domestic)
Just2trade Pros
- Very low commissions
- Free real-time level 1 and 2 quotes
- Free Morningstar research
- Free dividend reinvestment including fractional shares
- Low margin rates
Just2trade Cons
- Wrong cash balances and other account balance discrepancies (!)
- An additional $0.003 per share to trade on the ECN during the extended-hours
sessions – from 7-9:30AM EST pre-market and 4-8PM EST after hours
- $25 IRA setup fee, $75 IRA closing fee and $35 annual fee for IRA accounts (if below $25,000 in assets)
- For customer service company encourages contact by email
- Options Exercise / Assignment fee: $20 per exercise or assignment
- Checking & VISA Debit Card fees: $50 (Gold Package); $75 (Platinum Package)
- Minimum $2,500 account balance requirement
- No support for beginner or novice investors
- Poor choice of mutual funds
- Open orders are getting randomly canceled
Just2Trade Review 2012 Summary
Just2Trade charges very low commission on stocks and ETFs: $2.50 per trade, which makes it one of the cheapest online stock brokers
if one trades over 500 shares on average per trade, does not trade after-hours and makes over 20 trades per month. However, investors will
be disappointed with a big surcharge of $0.003 per share on extended hours trades.
Just2Trade only accepts very experienced and active traders as customers: there is a requirement of at least two years of trading
experience and knowledge of trading terminology and personal account management. Clients are expected to be pretty much self-reliant.
The biggest problem with Just2Trade, is a need for customers to constantly monitor their account balances to make sure
they are correct. Account balance could move widely in either direction. This is a huge issue - how can you trust a firm with your money
when they can't even properly maintain balances?
For anyone looking to open a retirement account there are multiple IRA fees to pay: IRA setup and annual IRA fees as well as a closing fee.
For a fee-free retirement accounts check out
Best Brokerages for IRA list.
Just2Trade's client base consists of very experienced traders who need cheap executions. There are few learning materials for
beginners, no online trader community and no virtual trading environment. For these reasons, the firm is not a good
choice for a broker for beginner investors.
Because of account balance calculation problems we don't recommend Just2Trade.
There are other
Top Rated Brokerages that offer low commissions, fewer fees and don't have the problems that plague Just2Trade.
Just2trade Promotional Code/Offer: none right now
Just2trade
Reviewed by Brokerage Review on
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Rating: 3
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