Which stock broker to choose?

F5 Networks / Eng
5$$

Go to company page F5 Networks Eng

5$$
Jun 17, 2020 22 Comments

Planning on using some portion of my income as play money to try picking individual stocks. I know this can end up bad, and, I'm willing to take that risk.

My current platforms are ETrade and Vanguard.

Should I continue using one of these for buying individual stocks or is a broker like Robinhood better?

TC: 175

95 PARTICIPANTS SELECT ONLY ONE ANSWER
VOTE VIEW RESULT

comments

Want to comment? LOG IN or SIGN UP
TOP 22 Comments
  • Amazon
    FxcI23

    Go to company page Amazon

    FxcI23
    Don't go Robinhood. Use a reputable broker. Any of the others you listed will do fine, I prefer TD Ameritrade (Fidelity)
    Jun 17, 2020 5
    • F5 Networks / Eng
      5$$

      Go to company page F5 Networks Eng

      5$$
      OP
      Thanks for the tip!

      +1 to what G said, why not choose Robinhood?
      Jun 17, 2020
    • Amazon
      FxcI23

      Go to company page Amazon

      FxcI23
      Robinhood has a history of screwing things up and costing you money or headache. Typically their only response to that is too offer you free access (for a month) to their "gold" platform that lets you borrow money from them. Although the last time they fucked up huge, and could prove they cost you over a thousand dollars they offered $75.

      They also don't display accounting stuff correctly, over the weekend they numbers can be all wrong. This lead to a teen suicide that was in the news this week.

      Their technical glitches are gross. Their last outage was because there was a reverse split, which is perfectly normal. They had a multiple day outage because of a leap year....two leap years in a row. They only let you borrow money based on the amount of money you have, for the longest time, they counted the money they loaned you in that, allowing infinite borrowing.

      Platform isn't mature enough and doesn't have customer friendly leadership
      Jun 18, 2020
  • Amazon
    aws2gcp

    Go to company page Amazon

    aws2gcp
    Schwab has great trading tools
    Jun 17, 2020 2
  • Fidelity has good fund choices, easy tools, fast trades and transfers.
    Jun 17, 2020 1
  • Google
    lmku

    Go to company page Google

    lmku
    only choose Robinhood if you don't expect to be able to make trades during high-volume events (see: February 2020)
    Jun 17, 2020 1
  • New
    ACHz06

    New

    ACHz06
    Fidelity is good all round, but Etrade has changed its fee structure, with decent discounts. Average Joe's good with Fidelity or Vanguard (good for passive), or TD. Bank of America buy and holders good with Myrill, especially if you want maintain a high networth with BofA for benefits (though Barclays has good benis too) Etrade if you want to get fancy. My life has led to have four active brokerage accounts, it's not that bad. M1 finance is a really cool system that makes strategic asset allocations simple, it that just came out, I'd use it if I had to start all over.
    Jun 17, 2020 1
    • New
      ACHz06

      New

      ACHz06
      Try to match your trading strategy and goals to your brokerage. Are you buy and holding or day trading? Active or passive? DRIP? Bonds? Option? Short? A simple defensive trader is good with any discount broker with decent research material, while I'd say an enterprising trader requires Etrade or more. Also, look into the online online security features.
      Jun 17, 2020