Cheapest low volume transaction Broker

I've read trhough some of the threads regading online stock brokers but I'm still slighlty confused as to who is the cheapest low volume transaction stock broker.I would only be trading less than 5 times a year on the Nasdaq.

One of the US online brokers would probably be your best bet (if they allow non US nationals to open accounts these days?). The likes of Ameritrade, E*Trade etc. Have you checked the Financial Best Buys forum for details of Irish and foreign stockbrokers and their charges?

I use Firstrade who allow non US nationals to open accounts (I opened mine in last month). Trades are $6.95 each, although search around for deals which give you a certain number of free trades.

The downside is that they only allow you to trade on US exchanges.

www.zecco.com offers free trading (up to 40 free trades a month), $30 annual maintenance fee. They accept accounts from Irish residents.

Nothing against any of the names mentioned but be sure that any online broker that you choose is reputable and reliable and in for the long haul. After all your shareholdings will be in electronic form so in the even of the broker disappearing for whatever reason you may be at best inconvenienced and at worst out of pocket.

charttrader said:

www.zecco.com offers free trading (up to 40 free trades a month), $30 annual maintenance fee. They accept accounts from Irish residents.

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Charttrader, do Zecco allow you to trade on UK/European/ISEQ exchanges ?

After recommendations on this board I went ahead with Interactive Brokers (http://www.interactivebrokers.com). I have to say I have been impressed. I am using it for a long term buy and hold strategy, with regular purchases (bi-weekly/monthly).

The bad news: €10 per month account maintenance
The good news: $1 per transaction typical for US share purchase, €4 for funds/etf/European shares. (up to approx $/€50k)

I believe that the account maintenance is reduced by your transaction amount, so if you make €8 worth of transactions in a month, your maintenance fee in that month will be €2.

As far as I can see, you can trade pretty much anything. I am currently holding US equities in dollars, German ETFs in Euro, Oil/Gas through UK ETCs and European stocks directly. See: [broken link removed] under "Trading->Product Listings"

I am using AIB's free IBAN transfer to fund the account and it is working great. The reporting is excellent, so tax returns should be ok.

I was very worried when I saw the Trader Workstation platform as it is very much geared for the professional day trader, but you can use the WebTrader platform for pretty much everything and it works great (there is a new version just out).

The only gotcha that I was not aware of was that you have to subscribe to real-time quotes for the different markets. All US real-time level 1 data is free if you spend more than $30 per month, or $10 per month otherwise. One German exchange is €1 per month for real-time quotes. You could get your quotes from somewhere else of course.

On the security of the company: Read http://www.interactivebrokers.com/en/general/about/ibgStrength.php?ib_entity=llc

All in all I am very happy - it has taken me a bit of time to get used to; but the cost of trading, range of products/markets are amazing and definitely something that you can grow into.

JR
Am actually an Interactive Brokers customer, not zecco. Mentioned zecco because original poster would only be trading a few times a year and IB is geared to more active traders.
AFAIK, zecco only offers access to US markets. They definitely don't offer access to iseq, even IB (which caters for most markets) doesn't bother with Irish market.

Thanks,excellent info there and cheaper than I had originally thought.

I have been using IB for years, and have to say I find them best value. Also use Etrade.

charttader, do you know whats zecco's execuation like and any ideas about their customer service? 40 free trades a month doesnt seem so bad.
thanks for the pointer.

Zac
Dunno much about zecco. If you're using limit orders and swing trading as opposed to day trading, they should do the job. To daytrade, would definitely stick to a DAT broker like IB. For market orders, it's highly unlikely that the execution prices would be as good as IB's, ditto speed.

From their website;

How fast is your trade execution?
Because Zecco Trading allows Penson Financial Services to automatically route all of its orders, trades will always receive the best execution possible. However, the maximum execution time for market orders should not exceed the industry standard of 30 seconds.

Folks

Looking at passive investing myself and Keytrade is one I have come across.

But e-trade looks the same can anyone confirm?
IB looks to be for the more active trader...

jrewing said:

I use Firstrade who allow non US nationals to open accounts (I opened mine in last month). Trades are $6.95 each, although search around for deals which give you a certain number of free trades.

The downside is that they only allow you to trade on US exchanges.

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ETrade also allows non-nationals (once you've signed a W-8BEN form for tax purposes). ETrade from this month seemingly will be offering access to UK, French, German and Japanese markets. (and maybe a few others). Although I haven't seen this offered on my account yet.....they've had the blurb up for the last 2 months though.

ETrade charge about $13 per trade if you have less than 50K in assets in your account (it;s about $7 if you have more than 50K)

hattrick_12a said:

Looking at passive investing myself and Keytrade is one I have come across.

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I agree and they are who I went for.

I don't understand how $1/trade is relevant for a low volume trader. Surely the $10/month is a way more (negative) important stat?

I read on a blog "milliondollarjourney.com" that google are holding discussions to allow real time live quotes on google finance and other google apps. This maybe of some use if it happens for Interactive broker customers and others may follow suit.

http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2007/01/real-time-quotes-for-free.html

I think Interactive Brokers look good, (not with them but thinking about it) as you can trade on lots of international exchanges. I agree the $10 maintenance is a pain for low volume traders but this today anyway is just approx. €85 as (12*10=$120 for the yr which would include all transaction costs and maintenance cost of a low volume trader) so not bad and you would be more inclined to increase your portfolio size if the trades are so cheap and are worked into the maintenance price. ie $8 worth of trades so only $2 maintenance to pay for the month and a trade is only $1 which is cheap (€20 with NIB). If you trade on 4 seperate occassions with NIB you would be paying over €80 as the minimum charge I believe is €20. To build a decent portfolio in my eyes anyway you would need more than 4 shares and in multiple sectors and even better in multiple geographies.
Low volume brokers are easier to find in the US as they have brokers that dont charge maint cost but I have yet to find both a cheap transaction cost and no maintenance cost in European broker yet, unless anyone can point me to one that also trades in multiple exchanges and not just US exchanges?

a trade is only $1 which is cheap (€20 with NIB)

CollyD, you should note that $1 is the minimum cost with Interactive Brokers. For US transactions, a 200 share purchse would be $1, 400 shares would be $2, 1000 would be $5, etc.

Thanks for clairifying charttrader, as you are an IB customer would you recommend them as a low volume trader for me possibly 7 trades of about 200 shares for the first year then 4 sets of 200 in subsequent shares of to hold and very few to sell I hope anyway given changes in my circumstances?

keytrade seem good for low volume but have quite high transaction charges for example £29 STG to buy and sell on the LSE, actually is it usually £29 to buy and then £29 to sell and same for IB $1 to buy 200 shares and $1 to sell the same 200 shares some time after?

CollyD said:

Thanks for clairifying charttrader, as you are an IB customer would you recommend them as a low volume trader for me possibly 7 trades of about 200 shares for the first year then 4 sets of 200 in subsequent shares of to hold and very few to sell I hope anyway given changes in my circumstances?

keytrade seem good for low volume but have quite high transaction charges for example £29 STG to buy and sell on the LSE, actually is it usually £29 to buy and then £29 to sell and same for IB $1 to buy 200 shares and $1 to sell the same 200 shares some time after?

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I highly recommend IB to active traders. The firm does not really want the business of someone who trades a few times a year but still, there's no reason why a low volume investor can't take advantage of their rates. The con is the $10 inactivity fee per month.

Re. free r/t quotes at Google. You can already get a limited number (1500 per month) free at MSN.
http://articles.moneycentral.msn.com/Common/FreeCharting.aspx

You really don't need r/t quotes if you're buying and holding so I would not bother paying for IB's data feed. The occasional glance at MSN or Google should do just fine.

Re. Keytrade and IB - yes, there is a charge for buying and an identical charge for selling.