MB Trading Review
MB Trading Overview
The newest broker among large brokerage firms, MB Trading sports a high overall ranking for investing and trading features led
by some of the lowest commissions in the industry. Their rates for stocks, ETFs, and options are $0 (with an additional
$0.50/contract charge on options trades). Other pluses are no minimum investments, no maintenance or hidden fees, a vibrant online community for
investor advice and education, and top-rated customer service.
MB Trading does not impose annual fees or account inactivity charges.
MB Trading offers a wide range of IRA accounts, and it does not charge maintenance and set up fees for individual retirement accounts. There is an IRA
closing fee of $50, and the same charge for a complete outgoing account transfer and for a complete IRA distribution. There are no minimum balances for the account.
Another great feature is that at MB Trading DRIPs (Dividend Reinvestment) Plans (fractional and whole shares) are available at no fee.
Both retirement accounts investors as well as customers opening a taxable account are able to use MB Trading free trades promotion to build their
portfolio essentially free of charge.
MB Trading is surely a low cost brokerage company, but it doesn’t really look like it when you finally get to see all their advanced trading tools. All clients have
free access to interactive charts that offer volatility and technical indicators; technical analysis which including price forecasting, educational support,
and chart pattern recognition. They also get free access to a MarketGrader: a diagnostic analysis tool used to grade stocks.
The broker has total customer assets of about $4.5 billion spanning more than a quarter million funded accounts.
MB Trading Platform
The broker lunched its brand new web-based trading platform, known as MB Trading LIVE,
which is completely customizable. Because of the intuitive design of the trading platform, it looks and works great on a device of any size.
MB Trading LIVE allows investors to easily place a trade from just any place in a new ticket window on the right side of the screen.
Additionally, investors can easily monitor and track their potential and existing investments in real time. Streaming quotes are readily available for
free to all active investors.
MB Trading Mobile Apps are also available for the iPad/iPhone, Android, and trading mobile platform can easily be accessed through just any internet-enabled devices that are wireless. MB Trading mobile also allows one to enter options or stocks orders, check account activities and order status, grab the latest quotes and also track updates to investor's watchlist.
MB Trading Customer Service & Education
Although Ally has retained most of TradeKing’s pricing schedule, there are a few notable changes the most important being a discount for active traders. In addition to
very low commissions MB Trading offers an extraordinary customer service. They pledge to answer all calls in seconds, and they actually deliver on their promise. There
are several positive reviews online with clients praising representative’s timely response via emails and phone, as well as a lot of optimistic things about very
knowledgeable staff. MB Trading has been recognized globally and is particularly respected by industry publications such as SmartMoney for its superb customer service.
Company's representatives can easily be reached via phone 7am-10pm ET, 7 days a week. Live chat
support are also available, which is what most customers prefer if they have a fairly simple
question.
MB Trading Broker ETF Fees
If you recently began trading with an MB Trading account and want to take advantage of their ETF offerings, this article is for you. We will cover everything ETF-related with your MB Trading account, including their selection, applicable fees, and how to actually place ETF trades.
What Are ETFs?
For those who are brand new to the markets or otherwise not too familiar with what ETFs are, they are essentially pooled investments that represent proportional ownership in hundreds or thousands of underlying companies’ stocks that the ETF holds. As an investor, you trade an ETF just like you would an individual stock. Most ETFs are managed to a specific mandate, which can be as basic as passively tracking an index (like the Russell 1000 for example) or offering diversified exposure to a specific country or sector to more niche, targeted investment strategies, like Japanese Telecom stocks.
MB Trading’s ETF Offerings
Similar to Firstrade, Ally’s platform includes access to more than 2,000 ETFs, including popular ETF brands such as Vanguard and Fidelity. Their selection includes ETFs from all major asset classes, including core equities (U.S., International Developed, and Emerging), bonds, alternatives, and diversified multi-asset class offerings, such as popular 60/40 blends of equity/fixed income. MB Trading also makes it easier to find that specific ETF that you’re looking for with their ETF screener, which allows you to filter them by attributes such as asset class, fund family, expense ratio, beta, and Morningstar rating.
Commission-Free ETFs
In spite of Ally’s ETF commissions, one positive is that they offer a list of 100 or so commission-free ETFs that you can trade for free.
How to Buy/Sell ETFs
Now, we’ll go over how to actually place an ETF trade, which is very simple and the same process you would follow
to place a trade in an individual stock on Ally’s platform.
First, go to the “Trading” menu on the top of the screen, and from the drop-down, select “Stocks & ETFs”. This will bring up an order ticket where you will simply specify the ticker symbol of the ETF you want to trade, whether you want to buy or sell, the number of shares, and the limit price and duration/expiration of the order if it is a limit order.
In the below screenshot, we show an example where we created a limit order to buy 200 shares of IEMG at a price of $51 or lower with instructions to terminate the order if it isn’t filled same day.
Arthur Chachuna is professional personal finance blogger, and the owner of Brokerage-Review.com.
He has been an avid investor for 23 years, and has background in both applied math and programming.
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