Comments on: Scottrade Review

By: Scott

Scott — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 18:44:40 +0000

I am a buy and hold investor and would like to find an on-line broker that is “friendly” to this type of investing. I don’t do more than a couple of trades a year. Have tried to look at websites for all the brokers out there and things get very confusing, as well as, who’s going to tell you their downside. Can anyone provide names of companies to look at for someone who holds their positions for a longer period of time.

By: Brian

Brian — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 23:22:27 +0000

I place some very large orders, where a 1 or 2 penny difference equals $100’s of dollars in gains, but I always use limit orders with Scottrade (been with for 2 years, made hundreds of trades), and I’ve never had a single problem, never lost any money.

By: Brian

Brian — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 23:10:30 +0000

I’ve been with Scottrade for years, and I’ve never experienced the site down, never had any lag (you should use their free java Scottrader platform if you’re making trades; I never use the website, and I don’t know why you would unless you’re making a market order for a long-term investment, where you wouldn’t care about a few cents difference in the buy price).

By: Paul

Paul — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 22:57:57 +0000

Scottrade does allow writing calls, not puts however, which I agree is lame. But an intermediate investor can buy a call in a bull market, and write a call or buy a put in a bear market, so 3 out of 4 isn’t bad for non-advanced traders.

By: Pietro

Pietro — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 22:54:16 +0000

I trade 2000-10000 shares at a time, so something like Scottrade with a flat rate makes way more sense for me (and a lot of people I talk to) rather than a per share basis. Also, I’ve been using ScottradeElite for over a year now, and I have never experienced any lag, my trades always go through at the exact price I bid or ask, and because of it I’ve made a ton of money. Also remember ScottradeElite is more for trading, not investing, so that is where a flat rate also saves you money (although the platform definitely helps investors who use it properly).

By: LER

LER — Fri, 12 Feb 2010 00:18:47 +0000

Miles, check out better-investing.org. There may be an investing club close to where you live. You can find no better place to guide you on how to select stocks. There is a membership fee (but well eorth it). A disclaimer in in order: I’m not an officer nor an employee of Better-investing.org.

By: Miles

Miles — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 22:36:53 +0000

I am looking for someone to sort of become a mentor in order to learn how to trade and what to look out for so that I dont get burned trying to learn. Anyone have any ideas on how to network to find someone you can trust.

Thanks

By: LER

LER — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 17:21:28 +0000

I was not aware of $20.00 wire transfer fee for withdrawals. So far, Scottrade
has executed all my transactions online without a single glitch. Sharebuilder was unable to complete a buy request for CONX (Corgenix Medical, $0.17) because they do not offer it or it is not on their list of securities). Scottrade completed my request at the requested price (limit order, placed the night before). One good thing about sharebuilder, they transfer monet back to my checking with no charge. They (sharebuilder) also were able to complete a buy request for Bershire (BRK.B) when Scottrade could not do it. This was the night before BRK.B was open to everyone at a fair price ($73.00 vs $1300.00+.

By: JM

JM — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 20:03:27 +0000

I had a serious communication conflict after calling my Maryland Scottrade office contact, attempting to ascertain accurate information regarding an account transaction of mine. After several email requests to the National Service Center and two telephone calls over a period of two weeks, the Maryland office in question was unable to clearly answer my questions and even developed a defended unresponsive posture, as I grew increasingly frustrated. As I continued my quest for an accurate answer, I was able to speak to a very capable broker in the Scottrade Compliance Department, who LISTENED to me and was able to focus on my issue. If one of the local offices cannot satisfy a query, I recommend the Compliance Department at Scottrade. If that doesn’t work, one might try the Branch Administrator, which is where I finally lodged my complaint.

Scottrade does not permit clients to access a current monthly statement, which can thwart a customer from accessing a detailed account of the “Total Money Balance”. In order to secure a detailed account, one has to step back to the previous month’s ending balance and add up each transaction during the current month to access each transaction which flows into the “Total Money Balance”. If that sounds confusing, it is. Moreover, it is unfortunate that I had to go through great pains over a period of six weeks which included numerous emails and phone calls to secure this information. Given that my trust level in general has been seriously breached by the banking industry in a general context, I want current detailed accounts of all my monetary transactions from all banking and brokerage institutions with whom I deal in a timely way. Notwithstanding the fact that I will no longer deal with the Maryland office, I am sticking with Scottrade, as my overall experience over the last ten years as been on balance, positive.

By: James

James — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 21:45:35 +0000

I used to have an account with Scottrade.
I will tell you why I closed the account:

1. The web site is very slow. I placed an buy limit order and changed my mind and tried to cancel the order before it was executed. The web site does not move for a few minutes, and I could not cancel and I lost a lot of money.

2. The stock information it offers was not sufficient enough. I had to use Google Finance and Yahoo Finance to get more information about the companies I was interested.

3. You have a lot of unreasonable limitations. One example is that I once tried to trade TGX, it says “Please contact your local branch about placing an order on this security.” I trade it online without any restriction with the brokerage I am using now.
So, I decided to find another discount brokerage.

Oh, one more thing. When I tried to withdraw my money, it does not allow me to use ACH which is free even though I used it when I deposited the fund. They required me to pay $20 for wire transfer. I wonder why they do not offer ACH withdrawal that is faster, safer and cheaper. Free ACH for deposit only. So, you might want to consider that too, if you withdraw your money often.

James.