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There are so many brokerage firms to choose from it can be daunting to pick the best one. Unleveraged instruments include investments like stocks, exchange-traded funds, bonds, and mutual funds. Investments that are paid for in full when bought and not on margin.
Charles Schwab
Charles Schwab is a full-service broker that offers everything an investor will need. They are especially good for new investors, offering their Schwab’s Learning Center, where investors can learn investing topics. There are at least 50 free webinars each month, which are archived for later viewing.
Charles Schwab includes some of the best in-house research, offering clients market commentary and ratings on stocks, mutual funds and ETFs. Customers can also use their online stock screener to find instruments that meet their criteria.
They offer two trading platforms, StreetSmart Edge and Trade Source. Both have good charting and streaming quote capabilities, though their mobile trading app does not offer real-time streaming quotes at this time. Their pricing summary is as follows:
- Minimum deposit: $0
- Stock trade fee: $0
- ETF trade fee: $0
- Mutual fund trade fee: Up to $49.95 to buy, they do not charge when selling the mutual fund
- Broker assisted trades: $25
At Charles Schwab, clients can also buy fractional shares and trade penny stocks and over-the-counter bulletin board stocks (OTCBB). Schwab offers over 150 OneSource Funds with no commission. Schwab has numerous local branches and accepts customers from outside of the United States.
TD Ameritrade
TD Ameritrade is owned by Charles Schwab, but they are distinct enough to consider them as a separate broker. They are thought of as one of the best brokers for both beginners and seasoned investors, with enough trading tools to satisfy everyone.
Their trading platform, called “thinkorswim,” is one of the best in the business. Thinkorswim offers the ability to stream real-time data with dozens of charts. For technical analysis, thinkorswim includes over 400 technical studies that can be user-customized.
The TD Ameritrade Network broadcasts live market news and commentary every day from 8 am to 5 pm eastern time (US). Traders can also find social sentiment whenever they pull up a chart for any company, and traders can chat with other traders through thinkorswim. TD Ameritrade pricing summary:
- Minimum deposit: $0
- Stock fees: $0
- ETF fees: $0
- Mutual fund trades: $49.99
- Broker assisted trades: $49.99
- Penny stock trades: $6.95
Fidelity
Fidelity, known for its large family of mutual funds, is also an excellent broker. Their website and mobile apps are some of the easiest trading platforms to use. Along with their educational tools, Fidelity is perfect for beginners or casual investors.
They offer excellent charting tools that include 166 studies, 22 different drawing tools, chart trading alerts, and streaming quotes. Fidelity also includes excellent screening tools for stocks, mutual funds, and ETFs that users can compare to different benchmarks.
Fidelity provides numerous research reports for every quote that is pulled up for stocks and ETFs. For mutual funds, they provide research from Morningstar and Lipper. Customers can also read commentary and market analysis that includes trends to watch, annual sector reports and sector analysis. Fidelity pricing summary:
- Minimum deposit: $0
- Stock fees: $0
- ETF trade fees: $0
- Mutual fund fees: $49.95 and for Fidelity funds, $0
- Broker assisted trades: $32.95
eToro
eToro is the world’s biggest platform for Social Investing and Copy Trading. Also, it stems from Europe, but in 2018 it also opened its doors for the US market. It has registered offices in Cyprus, Israel, UK, US and Australia.
Mind that eToro has over 14m accounts opened and its platform is super-easy to use and navigate trading, especially for beginners.
Plus there’s there’s quite a bit of charting tools available at the platform, and most importantly trading stocks (especially US stocks) is fully commission-free.
eToro is a trading platform, and so it aggregates research from many other brokers, but also organizes calls, meetings and webinars with their own investing pros. There’s also the so called Popular Investor Program at eToro that it tailored for professional portfolio managers, as well as other people with their own investing startegy. All of them have the opportunity to build their own asset management business under the eToro asset management license with ESMA. I was invited to the program by eToro and since December 2020 I am part of it with my SmartInvestingApproach strategy that can bring a great risk/reward ratio to your investing (Sharpe Ratio near 2, Sortino Ratio near 2 – check here). You can copy my investing with just one click, if you open an account with the platform HERE. Thanks in advance!
eToro price summary:
- Minimum deposit: $200
- Stock fees: $0
- ETF fees: $0
- Each transaction is subject to a market spread that is reflected in the valuation of the position immediately upon opening. The market determines this spread and not eToro.
E*TRADE
E*TRADE became one of the first online brokers in 1982. Their web-based trading platform is easy to use, making it great for beginning traders.
They do not offer the types of educational tools that other brokerages offer, but E*TRADE provides everything an investor needs to make intelligent investment decisions. Investors will find research reports, ratings and market breakdowns from analysts. E*TRADE offers daily insights and Bloomberg TV from their web platform.
Their platform includes charting powered by Chart IQ that features 114 optional technical indicators, technical analysis and 32 drawing tools. The mobile platform also includes screeners for stocks, ETFs and mutual funds. E*TRADE price summary:
- Minimum deposit: $0
- Stock fees: $0
- ETF fees: $0
- Mutual fund trades: $19.99
- Broker assisted trades: $25
Interactive Brokers
Interactive Brokers is one of the best brokerage firms for experienced and professional traders and might not be best for beginner or casual investors. They are well-known for offering access to the global markets in 33 countries.
Casual investors will find their Fundamental Explorer platform fine for their needs. For professional traders, using their TWS platform includes things like back-testing and scanning.
Fundamental Explorer includes fundamental research on stocks, mutual funds and ETFs. Also included is a social sentiment analysis tool to help investors identify trends, sentiment scores and other insightful information.
Interactive Brokers also includes ESG ratings and research including their Impact tool. This tool allows you to score the stocks in a portfolio using specific metrics. Interactive Brokers price summary:
- Minimum deposit: $0
- Stock fees: $0
- ETF fees: $0
- Mutual fund trades: $14.95
- Broker assisted trades: $30
Conclusion
It is always best to check the fine print with each broker as there could be additional fees for certain types of accounts or trades. Even though TD Ameritrade belongs to Charles Schwab, they are two different brokerages with unique features. Schwab has excellent educational tools, while TD Ameritrade’s thinkorswim is one of the better platforms.
eToro is very good, if not the best, for CopyTrading and Social Investing
E*TRADE is a good discount broker with good charting tools that is fine for casual and serious investors. Interactive Brokers is the best for professional traders and those that want to trade markets in other countries.
Thanks for reading!
Yours,
GlobalAlphaS
* written in association with www.commodity.com
Disclaimers: None of the ideas, views and thoughts presented here shall ever be taken as a recommendation to buy or sell stocks,bonds,FX,commodities or any other financial instruments as stated in REGULATION (EU) No 596/2014 OF THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND OF THE COUNCIL of 16 April 2014 on market abuse (market abuse regulation) and repealing Directive 2003/6/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council and Commission Directives 2003/124/EC, 2003/125/EC and 2004/72/EC or the Polish Act of 10 February 2017 amending the act on trading in financial instruments and some other acts. The article is for educational reasons and purely presents private views of the author, thus the author shall not be held accountable for any losses of a third party resulting from any potential trading activities in any instruments, both specifically or by category of assets. The author uses his best knowledge and data from sources believed to be reliable, but makes no representations as to the accuracy of the data.Full Disclaimers&Liability Limitations page.
