Investing Adventures

Here’s a review on the discount brokerage firm, Tradeking.

Fees/Commissions: TradeKing offers a non–tiered commission schedule. All trades are just $4.95 and $0.65 per options contract. There is no minimum account balance. Mutual fund purchases range from $0 (No-load) to $14.95 (Load). All mutual fund sales are subject to a $14.95 fee. Margin rates are at 8%, non-tiered. Bond fees are $4.95, with a $14.95 minimum fee per bond transaction. Treasuries and CD’s transactions have a $24.95 fee per transaction.

TradeKing Fee Schedule

Investments Offered: TradeKing offers basic investments including stocks, options, mutual funds and ETFs. They also offer Treasury Issues, bonds and CDs. Contact a representative by phone to make Treasury, bond, and CD orders.

Platform Features: TradeKing’s platform provides useful tools include calculators, alerts, charts and graphs. Streaming news is also available on their platform. Other useful services include educational materials such as mp3s, videos, and articles. I believe podcasts are also available. Nice features to their platform includes previewing orders before execution as well as some useful tools such as a Profit/Loss calculator (unrealized and realized transactions).

Security: They use https web technology for login services. TradeKing is also an SIPC member.

Ease of Use: Their trading platform was easy to use, updating bid/ask prices and options chains constantly while you’re filling out your orders. TradeKing also automatically sweeps your excess cash into their money market sweeps account if you decide to enroll.

Support: TradeKing uses live web chat as a major avenue with customer service. E-mails to their staff were responded to within 24 hours.

Pros

• Low commission rates
• Well designed platform
• Responsive customer service
• No minimum deposit

Cons

• Extremely slow ACH deposits
• Not the cheapest discount broker anymore
• Cash isn’t accessible instantly (requires 10 business days after a deposit to withdraw via ACH)

Summary: TradeKing is a nice discount broker for novice investors. However, they’re not the cheapest investors on the block (see Zecco, Interactive Brokers, Bank of America). Their ACH profile takes 5 business days to complete a connection. First deposits via ACH take 5 business days to clear. Minimum waiting time required before trading: 10 business days. Withdrawing cash via ACH requires a 10 business day waiting period, thus not allowing someone to deposit cash and instantly withdraw the next day. As a result of the ACH issues and the not-so-low commission rates, I decided to withdraw my funds from TradeKing. If you’re interested in joining TradeKing, leave me a message so that I can issue you a referral e-mail from their platform.