TDAmeritrade, ETrade, Scottrade, etc.

[SephYuyX]

Anyone have any personal experiance with these, or another?

Ive been recently looking in to opening a personal retirement account, as well as an normal investment account, and I was leaning towards TDA as I was talking with a relative who suggested TDA. I would try some other routes such as bonds and CDs, but theyre shit atm, and the only real way to make any money is via stocks.

I plan on putting $5k into the retirement, and $5k in to the other to start off, and then putting an additional $500~1k in each account every month. TDA has a fairly nice 'set what you want, and let it ride' option with 5 different levels from high risk / high reward to low risk / low reward. Ive heard nothing put positive things about TDA, and it's options are fairly infallible if youre willing to take a few dips in the short run.

So yeah, just wondering about others opinions on the subject.

[Pirian]

I greatly advise TDA. I have a personal trading account there that I use for my normal stock trades, and I really have liked their service over the others that I've had experience with in the past. Granted, I haven't used ETrade, but Scottrade had higher fees back when I tried them.

TDA also has great customer service, and if they happen to have an office near you (if you're by any major city there's usually at least one) you can pretty much walk in anytime

[sephir]

I'm with TD and I have the say its been very reliable, and I have nothing but good things to say about them.

[Slapper]

High risk high reward...if you're young.

[Pirian]

High risk high reward...if you're young.

Risk in everything, it's how you manage that risk

[Serif]

Match 401k
Max out RothIRA
Blah
Blah
Stuff

That is if you haven't already.

[SephYuyX]

Yeah, luckily theres an office not too far from here, so I was going to go over there and have a chat for a bit before doing anything. Seems good so far with lots of positive TDA opinions.

And yeah, I planned on doing high risk / high reward.

[Callisto]

Go with anyone but ETrade, the FCC should shut them down for those stupid talking baby commercials. Whichever one used Jack McCoy instead would be my choice.

[takethistoyourgrave]

Can't go wrong with Vanguard either.

BTW, if you open a Roth IRA (which you should) you can only put 5000 in there / year (at the current cap), and you need to officially make more than 5000 taxable dollars in a year to do that (I would assume most people meet this requirement easily). Then take the rest of that money and build your portfolio.

[BarthelloSylph]

Fidelity offers free trading for certain ETF's, which unless you day trade is what you should be investing in instead of mutual funds.