Looking For A Stock Broker?

Are you looking for a stock broker? Do you need help trying to pick one? Every year around springtime Barron’s publishes who they think are the best. Investor Brain informs us of the 13th Annual Review of Online Brokers Up at Barron's Online. Investor Brain is written by Theresa W. Carey. She is the author of "The Electronic Investor" column in Barron's magazine. I like the Investor Brain site and find it interesting and useful. It contains a link to the Barron’s article on stock brokers.

If you are looking for a broker the best thing you can do is to do your own research. Check them out online for yourself. Some are quite accommodating. For example, Fidelity lets you sign on as a guest. You can even use their excellent stock screener when signed on as a guest. I wish more brokers let you do this.

As with anything, you should take any advice with a grain of salt, including mine too, I suppose. With that said, here are a few quick personal observations about online stock brokers and the reviews of them you may find.

I consider myself more of an investor, rather than a trader. What I want from an online stock broker are basically three things: a good stock screener, a good return on my cash, and a method of telling me how my investments are doing. Believe it or not, it is hard to find all three from one broker. Most brokers seem to think that everyone wants the latest gee-whiz software trading platform, and that they don’t care about the basics.

Think of how you will be using your broker. What will be important for you. As I’ve said, most brokers seem to market toward traders, rather than investors. If you’re not a trader they may not be the broker for you. Vanguard usually scores low, if at all, on broker reviews. However, if you are a “buy and hold” type of investor Vanguard offers an advantage other brokers don’t, a great money-market fund to park your cash. It all depends on what your priorities are. Most broker reviews don’t get into this very much.

I feel that Scottrade is overrated in most of these reviews. It is a good company, has great customer service, low commissions, however I’ve had problems with their stock screener online. Also their method of displaying cost basis online is kind of clunky. In fact, clunky is how I would describe their whole site.

Fidelity has a great stock screener. It has more bells and whistles than you may ever need. Sometimes their site seems very slow, however.

Firstrade has a customizable setup for telling you how well your investments are doing. I wish all brokers used this method.

I liked E*Trade. However, I moved my money out after their recent bankruptcy scare. They have an excellent web site, good cost basis information, and a good screener. Their customer service is not as bad as some would have you believe. I don’t like their use of teaser rates to get you to try something, however.

So there you have it. Just a few personal thoughts about stock brokers, by no means comprehensive. Do you have any personal experience with an online stock broker? I welcome your comments and thoughts.