Ask HN: Best online brokerage?

[theantidote]

I'm looking to do some stock market speculating for a quick gain with little risk. I'll only be investing about $800 and I will be selling pretty quickly thereafter, so fees for both buying and selling should be minimal, so should withdrawal fees. Mint.com integration would be a bonus.

As a token of my appreciation I'll do whatever referral thing your brokerage does (if that's allowed by HN) if I choose your site.

[pjharrin]

Make sure you don't qualify as a pattern day trader (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pattern_day_trader)

Unless you are looking for education services or becoming a day trade, any discount broker will do. As with most things the more you pay the more you get, ie. thinkorswim isn't the cheapest but they focus on education

[theantidote → pjharrin]

Thanks for the heads up. I'm not going to be trading that frequently. I just want to make sure that the brokerage I use doesn't charge excessive fees because I will be trading with such a low amount of money for a relatively short term.

I'll mostly be buying cheap blue chips and companies that are basically hard hit by the current crisis but bound to make a comeback within 1-2 years. Which companies exactly I'm not sure yet.

[noodle]

zecco, although you need to deposit more than $800 to get the free trades. don't have to actually make use of the full deposit amount, though

[theantidote → noodle]

Thanks, on my short list. The site doesn't seem to work quite right in Safari but that's a non-issue for me.

[Shamiq → noodle]

For what it's worth, I'm trading on Zecco.

They even sent me a shirt when I asked for one on twitter :D

[pmorici]

What about Scottrade, trades are cheap and minimums are low...

http://www.scottrade.com/

[theantidote → pmorici]

This is the one I finally decided on and signed up for today, thanks! I'd heard about it before and it looked like a pretty good deal. What made me finally decide was that they had a fairly low minimum deposit, low fees, and they let you withdraw all your money and close your account for free!

[mdolon]

A lot of my friends swear by ThinkOrSwim, you might want to check them out.

http://www.thinkorswim.com/

[theantidote → mdolon]

Thanks for the site, it looks great and it would definitely be my top choice but unfortunately they require a minimum deposit of $3500 and I can't afford that much right now (college student, no income).

[jay888]

I would recommend Wells Trade. If you have more than 25K to invest, then you get 100 free trades. Very good customer service