|
|
SogoTrade Review
Very cheap commissions, but terrible trading tools and customer service.
|
SogoTrade Review 2011-2012: Commissions, Fees and Investment Products
- Stocks and ETFs: $3
- Stocks and ETFs broker assisted: $25
- Options: $5 plus $0.50 per contract
- Options broker assisted: $25 plus $0.50 per contract
- Options exercise/assignment: $15
- No-load mutual funds: $15
- Investment products: stocks, options, mutual funds, ETFs
- Minimum to open Sogotrade account: $500
- All Sogotrade fees
Opening account with SogoTrade takes longer than usual. Online application forms are well designed, and
we were done with them at no time. But once this was completed, we had to wait for a while for application to be approved.
When it's done, we verified 2 deposits SogoTrade made into our bank account, which
took few days. We also faxed (there is a mail option) to SogoTrade a voided check from our bank. Minimum to open account is very
reasonable $500.
SogoTrade Website (SogoTrade.com)/Tools Review
SogoInvest trading platform is limited, slow and buggy. Trade executions sometimes take minutes. It's one of
the worst trading platforms out of all online brokerage firms we reviewed.
SogoTrade Pros
- Very low commissions
- Fractional shares available with no monthly subscription fee
- No inactivity, maintenance fees (accounts with over $100)
SogoTrade Cons
- For stocks priced under $1, the online commission is $3 plus 0.5% of the principal value
- Terrible trade executions
- Poor trading platform
- Frequent technical problems
- Very slow new account set up process
- Hard to reach, unresponsive customer service
- $30 annual IRA fee
- Can't short stocks under $3
- Cannot invest in CDs and bonds
- No interest on cash
SogoTrade Review Summary
SogoTrade has some of the lowest stock commissions in the industry
- just $3 per trade on stocks and ETFs over $1 and $5 plus 50¢ per contract on options. Mutual funds transactions are definitely
less attractively priced - $15 per transaction.
SogoTrade is one of the few online brokerages that offer fractional shares without monthly subscription fee.
This could be handy if you want to buy stock with a share price of thousands of dollars.
It is expensive to trade stocks below $1 with SogoTrade. Its trading platform is very slow, very buggy and crash prone.
There are a lot of complaints about very slow new account set up process and poor customer service. It's not uncommon for
customers to wait for 40+ minutes to get somebody on the phone. The emails sent to customer service are often not answered.
There will be days where your buying power and daytrade buying power just will not appear correctly. You'll have to call to resolve
the issue. Since the customer service is slow, it will take a while. After this issue is finally resolved, next day you might get
this problem again.
Many customers complain that their orders are getting randomly cancelled, or not being able to place orders. Most OTC and pinks
are not available and sometimes even big-board stocks are not available. SogoTrade doesn't allow shorting stocks under $3.
Cheap trades are not advantage in this case, since poor trading platform and terrible service often result in missing
investment opportunities, even one of which could easily be more expensive than all the savings on commissions. We strongly
encourage investors to research other Online Brokers, before
opening account at Sogotrade.
Sogotrade
Reviewed by Brokerage Review on
.
Rating: 3
|
|