What deal do you have?

I read in the various boards about people buying SIRI at these low prices but that is a problem for me because of my brokerage deal.

Here is how it works for me at Fidelity. I can trade up to 1,000 shares for a commission of $10.95. Beyond that I have to pay $0.15/share. Back when XMSR was trading at $40 the fees were negligible......these days with the price less than 20 cents/share, the fees become a substantial part of the trade.

So, you people who are buying these days.....do you have a better deal than I do or are you happy to eat those commissions?

Thanks for your comments.

td ameritrade is 9.99 a trade no matter what i believe, although i made 1 order for a thousand siri and it took 4 buys to get it all and they charged everytime even though it was just one order, kinda shitty imo.

switch to scottrade. it's 7bux a trade . for stocks priced under $1, add ½% of the principal value to the commission...

i use scottradde as well and you can put a order in for all or none so you only have to pay on commision

I got Scottrade as well. I had E-Trade - effin hated it.

Depending on the level of sophistication you need there are several type of brokers that are cheaper than those. For most people here I recommend the following three. Sharebuilder is the only one where you can purchase and sell SIRI:

Computershare.com, This is a DRIP transfer agent. You will not find SIRI here but it is worth checking. for a small one time set up fee you can start investing in IBM, WMT, etc... After the fee and depending on the plan, there may be a $1.00 transaction fee each time there's a transaction. This is not a true broker, it is more like a transfer agent for blue chips and other companies. Good site to start if you want to invest $25, $50 or $100 each paycheck.

Mellon bank. Also a transfer agent. Similar to Computershare.

Sharebuilder.com is a good broker if all you want to do is accumulate and do not trade in real time. They charge a monthly fixed fee of $12.00 per month and you get 6 trades during that month. If you exceed that then they charge $2.00 for each extra. The bad news is that they are not real time and this si a service mostly for investors that want to accumulate. Real time trades are $10.95 BUT I do not recommend Sharebuilder for Real Time trading, their web site is catered to the small long term investor and not day or swing traders.

The next level of sophistication comes from the following broker:

Zecco.com charges $0.00 for the first 10 trades every month if you have $2,000.00 in the account, after that it is $4.00. This is a good broker to start with if you only want to accumulate and do not day or swing trade.

After the above then you have what I call the "cream of the crop", cheap but not that cheap and tailored for day and swing trading:

Etrade
Scottrade
Ameritrade
Interactive Brokers
OptionsXpress
Trade king
Etc ...

I am not going to elaborate on each one but their fees range from $6.99 to $14.95 per trade and they basically offer the same set of tools. I had accounts with Ameritrade and Etrade and I do not have complains about the 2 of them.

Then, there's the full service brokers:

Fidelity
Merrill Lynch
Charles Schwab
Citigroup Brokerage
Bank of America Brokerage
JP Morgan Chase Brokerage
Etc...

Tailored for the high net worth investors, retirement accounts, ESA's, 529 college plans, etc.... If the guy that had 300K shares of SIRI had used one of them, he probably would not have bought 300K shares of SIRI @ $1.30. He probably would have bought GM, WMT, IBM, etc ...
These guys promote diversification and are good places to have a 401K or an IRA.

Finally:

Goldman Sachs
UBS
Credit Suisse
Morgan Stanley
Barclay's capital
Etc...

These are not for any of you guys... Sorry.

If you follow this link you will get a list of 200+ websites that offer some sort of trading and other financial services:

http://www.forexblog.org/2007/11/200...-inv.html#brok

There you go, choose one....

i'm more of a customer service guy, and they are awesome. they give free updates on my blackberry and i can set alarms when my portfolio changes. and i love being updated on my global portfolio .all in all commission doesn't bother me , if i have money to risk in today's markets , oh well.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Greenland

i'm more of a customer service guy, and they are awesome. they give free updates on my blackberry and i can set alarms when my portfolio changes. and i love being updated on my global portfolio .all in all commission doesn't bother me , if i have money to risk in today's markets , oh well.

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I started with Computershare back when the were Netshare or something like that back in th 90's and I only invested in blue chips.

I bought my house when I cashed in that account in 2002.

Then I switched to Sharebuilder. I still have some shares there but not much. My big account is with Fidelity and my day/swing with Etrade.

I never call customer service. I do not have any alarms and I seldom use the blackberry applications. I am focused on trading the right way. If I mess up is usually my fault, not customer service.

I use scottrade as well. You can buy 5 shares or 5000 shares, fee is always $7. As was said above, with a stock under $1, you add the 0.5% of the principal to the $7, so it is total value based, not share based.

Minimum ammount to open an account is $500 (which will buy you like 3100 shares of Sirius with the commission included. Always use the All or none modifier. It may delay your trade slightly, but you don't want all of those 100 share blocks that trade on a regular basis to kill your balance with transaction fees. You can do market or limit transactions, and after hours as well. The streaming quotes is a nice feature too. I have not gotten into Scottrader Elite yet, but I hear that is really nice.

yeah now i know what AON stands for, lol always learning the hard way

Shares above 1000 at Fidelity are .015 cents/share not .15 cents/share.

Dave

It matters little with a stock like Sirius.

Considering 1000 shares costs 160 bucks, the commission on it would be $15 bucks, nearly 10% of your trade.

With Scottrade, I could be the same the same number of shares for $7.80 (7 base commission plus 0.5% of 160, or 80 cents), or around 5%. Significant difference.

I also use Scottrade. Easy to use and if i need help the local office is always glad to answer a question.

Thanks for all of your comments.....and yes, Dave99 is correct about the 0.015 charge at Fidelity....I made a typo on the first post in this thread.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Newman

It matters little with a stock like Sirius.

Considering 1000 shares costs 160 bucks, the commission on it would be $15 bucks, nearly 10% of your trade.

With Scottrade, I could be the same the same number of shares for $7.80 (7 base commission plus 0.5% of 160, or 80 cents), or around 5%. Significant difference.

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It's the 10 thousand share trades that'll cost you big time with a full service brokerage firm. I'm in the process of moving my account to Ameritrade for this very reason. The problem is you can't make ANY trades during the transition, which so far has been more than a week.

Yes, I understand that the bigger the trade, the bigger the problem.

I just wanted to point out that even a relatively small trade in Sirius would constitute huge fees.

Let's take your 10000 share trade as an example. At the same 0.16 per share used above, your 10000 sahres would cost you $1600 just for the stock. Now lets consider commission. 0.015/share that Fidelity charges would run you $150 in commissions. Scottrade, however, would cost you a mere $7 + 0.5%, or $7+$8 = 15.

So, $150 or $15? Much better example.

ChoiceTrade
No minimum to open and its 5 bucks a trade. I've had to deal with customer service a few times via email, setting up a new account and such. Always get a reply within a few hours. So there isn’t anything to complain about. Its cheap, simple and the cs doesn’t suck.
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