Which Broker....

Which broker are you using and for what type of trading?

If you don't mind getting a little personal, what type of trading do you do that prompted you to choose your current broker or have you changed styles since then?

I would hesitate to daytrade with comission over $10, but if I needed fundamental data, I would hesitate with no frill, cheap brokers.

The more I trade, the more I am looking at brokers. Thanks in advance.

With interactive brokers you would be well under the 10$ commissions and if you trade a reasonable amount then the fee for trading on the US exchange would be waived, but there are some other monthly fees that will add up if you like to trade on all exchanges the forex is free to.

Not surprisingly Scottrade has the most votes. It's also #1 in brokerage reviews list. IB is popular among day-traders. Some of the smaller brokers, like TradeKing, are not well-known yet but they are great!

I'm with Zecco currently. Right now I am more into long term stock trading. With the market still being undervalued in my opinion after the recession and in recovery mode, Zecco has a lot of tools to screen stocks and research the market. The $4.50 trades are not a bad trait either! I tried a few of the other online brokerages (Sogo, Optionshouse, Scotttrade), but just found that for what I need on a day to day basis Zecco is by far the best value. Hope this helps and best of luck in this interesting market!

IB is popular because 1) they charge commissions on a per-share basis, so they're cheaper if you trade smaller quantities, and 2) they're what's called a "direct-access" broker, meaning you can send your orders straight to the market maker (rather than having the brokerage be the middleman), which means greater speed of execution and control. You also have access to many different markets. Customer service has not been IB's strong suit, judging by the reviews over the years. But then IB's stance is that it's a brokerage for experienced traders who don't need hand-holding.

Well got me in here looking. I've been wit ST since 1995. I cuss em and like their hands off. They are restrictive in some pinks, and I hate calling in any order. I don't want to talk to anyone of those wanna be stock brokers, EVER! But ST has gone to a new charting look and it SUCKS!

I use this for my Pink/OTC plays. IRA is with Goldman.

$6mm in dollar trades last year and I know one stock QASP almost 300 individual trades. I'll do some $6+ stocks, but stay with sub penny plays.
ST execution and allowing unsettled fund trading with ease, but the charts I relied on for years is no good. So time to be looking around what the rest of yall use. Zeeco I have but they will not alloow the same funds traded more than once a day. The price is right, but gotta have my money when I want it.
And whats up with those unsettled funds anyway. Settle the F'n trades, Don't they use computers. I can down load my daughter writting 4th grade valeintine stuff now and have it downloaded and being watched by Millions all over the tiny green planet with in a nano second. Please! 3 days to clear a trade. I bet its done in a fraction of a nano second at most. Its a sham.

Scottrade is the cheapest commission of the highly advertised discount brokers, which I think is why they have such a high rating. They are by no means the best one on this list. This poll is going to be skewed a little bit as you'll have basically two categories... Brokerages that you see commercials on TV for (which are typically more expensive commissions) and Brokerages that don't advertise but have a great 'word of mouth' reputation (These are the one's you'll actually want to use).