Anything better than Etrade out there?

[porkrind]

I just sold all my stocks on Etrade after taking a beating from them for too long.

Doing a little spring cleaning. :)

Who do you use for trading? I'm tired of Etrade and their high commissions. Is there anything better?


Also, where are you putting your money these days? With all the rampant corporate crime, I'm afraid of stocks and mutual funds, but I've got to put it somewhere...??? I'm expecting some kind of financial meltdown after the election, when interest rates rise, but I don't know where to go to be safe. Maybe I'll just put it into my house. :)

[TlalocW]

1. My money

Goes into a coffee can buried in the backyard. It's safer there.

TlalocW

[porkrind]

5. I'm with you.

I would stuff it in my mattress, but it seems that the dollar is being devalued by the euro, stealth inflation, and corporate crime. If I just keep it in dollars, it will lose value. Maybe it's better than losing it all in some corrupt mutual fund, though.

Maybe I should look into holding euros or precious metals?

[L.A.dweller]

2. I've been told that Sharebuilder

is pretty fine but you can only sell on a tuesday.

How much did it cost to start an account with E-trade?

[porkrind]

4. Never heard of Sharebuilder, but I'll look them up.

Thanks.

I don't remember how much it was to start with Etrade, but I'm sure it was a lot. They are very "fee" oriented.

[Nite Owl]

3. Scottrade has been pretty good.

$7 a trade, no fees, good service.

[L.A.dweller]

6. I have an investment question,

if you so care to answer. How do i find out a stock's share price?
What is the symbol to look for?
-Thanks

[porkrind]

7. If you belong to a trading service,

you can just research the stock by searching on it's company name or ticker symbol (an abbreviation for the financial industry). If not, I think there are internet sites where you can find this stuff out like morningstar, motley fool, yahoo money, etc.

Worst case, just google for the company name and "stock symbol" or something like that.

[L.A.dweller]

9. There are a bunch of symbols that

I am not familiar with. I don't know which one denotes the share price.
Thanks.

Is it the opening/last price?

[amazona]

8. hmmmm

Years ago, I tried to sign up with eTrade and they lost my check, so I got disgusted with them and never gave them another chance. I use T.D. Waterhouse but you need to have a substantial amount of money to invest to keep the fees down. I am slowly liquidating individual stocks when I can, because there is just no evidence that the SEC is going to crack down on fraud. (Harassing Martha Stewart does zip to protect me from another ATT, Enron, or Worldcom fraud.) Mutual funds really have the same problem -- and there is additional fraud with some formerly well-regarded funds like Janus -- but so far my fund family is supposed to one of the few honest ones, so I'm keeping it for now. If there is a total economic meltdown, yeah, I'll lose my money, but so will everybody else, and suddenly the cries of "let's privatize Social Security, etc" should come to a grinding halt, so it would be less critical to have retirement funds.

Because of the terrible interest rates, I've already pulled out of my CDs as they expired. Money markets are no longer paying interest in any real sense and some are shutting down to new investors or considering actually charging fees, so they're dead. For liquidity, I use ING Direct but there may be other interest bearing savings accounts that are OK. Not great, but OK.

If you have low/no property tax and can be SURE of holding onto your home in event of an economic crisis, paying off your mortgage can be a wise choice. That's what I did when I was briefly earning good money a few years back. Keep in mind, when paying off early, if you do have a financial crisis and have to default, you don't get back what you paid off early. So it is only good to pay off early if you are CERTAIN you would never default, never be assessed property tax so high you couldn't pay in a crisis, etc.

Make SURE you maintain quality homeowner's insurance and don't forget it will no longer be paid for you out of your escrow when you paid off your home. I had damage to my home this summer over $30,000. It would have been a true disaster if I had not maintained my insurance. I just read a horror story of a man who forgot to pay his homeowner's insurance after he paid off his house, and it burned down in California, so he was totally screwed. Just something to keep in mind.