E*TRADE Review: Pros & Cons for 2023

On the customer service front, both E-Trade and TD Ameritrade give investors access to customer service through 24/7 phone support and chat. Using E-Trade, customers can access professional financial consultants, traders, and human representatives. Nevertheless, TD Ameritrade makes up for its weaknesses through a great range of educational content that most newbies find useful. TD Ameritrade has educational content on stocks, options, ETFs, Retirement, and Fixed Income that investors might utilize as they start trading. Entrusting your money with any financial institution, whether it’s a brick-and-mortar bank or an online brokerage, can be nerve-wracking.

• As mentioned before, Ally Invest, which started in 2005, purchased TradeKing in 2016.
• Blain’s insights have been featured in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Forbes, and the Chicago Tribune, among other media outlets.
• Research is another important component for traders, and both TradeKing and E-Trade provide high quality third-party research tools to aid traders in their investment careers.
• SmartMoney ranked TradeKing’s customer service as number one in 2008, 2010, 2011, and 2012.

Sam Levine has over 30 years of experience in the investing field as a portfolio manager, financial consultant, investment strategist and writer. He also taught investing as an adjunct professor of finance at Wayne State University. Sam holds the Chartered Financial Analyst and the Chartered Market Technician designations and is pursuing a master’s in personal financial planning at the College for Financial Planning. Previously, he was a contributing editor at BetterInvesting Magazine and a contributor to The Penny Hoarder and other media outlets. As a firm that operates on transparency, E-Trade doesn’t hide any fees for both IRA and non-IRA accounts.

Customer Service

Although, if he/she chooses not to buy it, that individual will lose the money that was initially put down. Even with technical difficulties, overall, users report TradeKing customer service to be very responsive and professional. TradeKing customer service is also helpful because of the number of ways users can get in touch with a representative and the uncomplicated nature of its phone system.

On the flip side, trading on E-Trade provides users with seamless integration between PC and mobile versions. A common factor with either broker is that they have open customer service lines to connect investors with experts on various trading options. One limitation with Ally Invest is that it restricts foreigners from opening accounts, reserving them for US citizens only. There are also a number of unique TradeKing option tools that are offered. AutoTrade allows investors to automatically buy and sell based on the advice of a financial newsletter.

• The securities you choose to invest in depend on your personal financial goals and your investment strategy.
• Telephone representatives are available from 8am to 6pm ET, Monday through Friday.
• Also review each firm’s site for the most updated data, rates and info.
• Commissions aren’t what they used to be, and that’s a very good thing, indeed.
• As you can see in the table below, the number of funds each broker offers, and whether or not you’ll have to pay to invest in them, varies significantly by brokerage.

In comparing TradeKing and E-Trade, the choice ultimately depends on your specific needs and priorities. If you are a [Type] investor who values extensive research tools, in-person support, and a wider variety of investment options, E-Trade may be the better choice. On the other hand, if low fees and a user-friendly platform are more important to you, TradeKing could be a more suitable option. Between TradeKing and E-Trade, TradeKing comes out ahead in a lot of categories.

Better for IRA Accounts: TradeKing or E*Trade?

Alternative investment ideas, economic commentary and finance strategy and tips. Still, this is not enough of a difference to demerit it since it’s not an uncommon practice. Reasonable efforts charles schwab vs etrade have been made by AdvisoryHQ to present accurate information, however all info is presented without warranty. Also review each firm’s site for the most updated data, rates and info.

This makes diversification much harder to do for beginner traders, but it still gets the job done, especially if you consult TradeKing’s reputable trader community. Even so, E-Trade still offers a normal and perfectly robust online interface they can work with regardless of their balance, which makes things easier if you’re just starting out. For more details about the categories considered when rating brokers and our process, read our full methodology. We collect data directly from providers through detailed questionnaires, and conduct first-hand testing and observation through provider demonstrations.

Best Broker Guides

Some brokers allow their investors to make certain trades without paying a fee. Keep on the lookout for commission-free ETFs and no-transaction-fee (NTF) mutual funds, which can be traded without paying a transaction fee to your brokerage. This is extremely useful for traders who like to observe current market activity and price fluctuations.

How to Invest Money

Luckily, if you know how they work, you can generally avoid them. Don’t forget about perks you receive for opening an account, either. Across the industry, special offers for IRAs can be extremely lucrative, with cash bonuses frequently topping $2,000 or more just for opening an account.

Blain’s insights have been featured in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Forbes, and the Chicago Tribune, among other media outlets. You can check your account and make trades from your mobile phone or tablet from anywhere around the world. Here’s how each broker’s users and customers rated their mobile trading apps, as of Feb. 24, 2017. While E-trade is competent across all metrics, TD Ameritrade is the overall better brokerage company. TD Ameritrade offers more investment options and education for beginners who benefit from its superior market research.

Online trading accounts, also known as online brokerage firms, allow investors to trade stocks, bonds, options, and more on their own, either online or over the telephone. Two popular online trading platforms are TradeKing and E-trade. Discount online brokerage firms are a convenient option for people who want to get started with investing but aren’t ready to pay exorbitant fees for fancier firms. The E-Trade and TradeKing platforms are two popular online firms with low prices and a variety of investment options that are accessible for novice and seasoned investors alike. TradeKing is a popular online broker known for its competitive pricing and easy-to-use platform. It offers a range of investment products and services, including stocks, options, ETFs, and mutual funds.

TradeKing’s options, which allow trading in stocks, bonds, mutual funds, and more, are diverse enough to meet the various needs of investors and their unique portfolios. It is famous for its low price ($4.95 commission) and the social networking nature of its platform. Its platform is very user-friendly, offering an intuitive design and layout for investors.

However, while Ally doesn’t have a minimum, E-Trade has a $500 minimum deposit, no maintenance fee, and no inactivity fee. Brokerage platforms thrive when they maximize positive customer experience but among the two, Ally Invest falls short on various aspects. On Ally Invest, the mobile app doesn’t support every asset, a negative factor that demands the user to shift to the web service. Also, Ally’s standard web platform requires manual refreshing for quote updates, an aspect that limits active trading. The Motley Fool has no position in any of the stocks mentioned.

Customer service

These features mean that the trading platform is virtually free to customers—for regular trading. The securities you choose to invest in depend on your personal financial goals and your investment strategy. Most online trading accounts offer the basics, like stocks and bonds, while others may vary, offering financial instruments, like ETFs and mutual funds. However, some aspects of the platform Ally Invest offers limits its potential, including the lack of syncing between the app and the web platforms. An investor can trade in mutual funds and trade equities on the mobile app, but they cannot complete the same functions on the website. The mobile app equally lacks watch lists and an account holder can’t trade in conditional orders.

This makes StockBrokers.com home to the largest independent database on the web covering the online broker industry. All research, writing and data collection at StockBrokers.com is done by humans, for humans. To score Customer Service, StockBrokers.com partners with customer experience research firm Confero to conduct phone tests from locations throughout the United States. For our 2023 Broker Review, 168 customer service tests were conducted over six weeks, with wait times logged for each call. Keep in mind that depositing money into your account does not mean you’re invested; once your account is funded, you’ll need to select investments. Don’t count on getting much of a return on the free cash in your brokerage account.