Ask HN: What do you use to buy and sell stocks? • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: What do you use to buy and sell stocks?

#21

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Sep 09, 2014, 7:48 PM UTC

mschaecher wrote: post #4

andymoe wrote: post #2

Meh. What sucks about it? I just use Schwab and their web interface and sometimes their mobile app. It's fine. If you are an active trader (but why?) you can get desktop software from them. If you have issues you can always get someone on the phone and you can file paperwork via their sites messaging system. I like them better than e-trade and have been a customer for a long time.

Not super active. Few trades a month. Mostly for fun and to get skin in companies I believe in. Sharebuilder is horrible. Will check out Schwab thanks!

[deleted]

Re: Ask HN: What do you use to buy and sell stocks?

#22

Post by Muted » Tue, Sep 09, 2014, 10:15 PM UTC

Well it depends very much on what kind of trader/investor you are. If you are an active trader you want something with a very low cost per trade while a monthly fee is not such a big deal. Interactive Brokers (IB) immediately comes to mind then. If you are located in Europe no taxes on dividends are withheld by IB and should be declared by yourself. That is if you want to declare them. Not sure if this is the same in US.

If you are an infrequent trader the cost per transaction is less important, you just don't want any monthly fees. I personally use thinkorswim (which is part of TD Ameritrade). But I'm sure scottrade, fidelity, etrade would be fine too.

Finally there is always the question if you want to pick stocks yourself. As Warren Buffett has often said, if you don't want to dedicate the time and effort you should buy an s&p 500 index fund. He recommends vanguards VFIAX or you could buy the ETF VOO. For most people this will do a lot better over time than picking stocks yourself!

Re: Ask HN: What do you use to buy and sell stocks?

#23

Post by Muted » Tue, Sep 09, 2014, 10:44 PM UTC

mcv wrote: post #19

I'm using Binck.nl. They've got several different tools with tons of data. Can't tell you much more, because I'm still figuring it out. Not sure how to buy index stocks (is that even possible?).

Yes, but as far as I know you can't buy indexs directly. You need to buy them via an ETF or fund that tracks a certain index. For instance the ticker VOO and VUSA are Vanguard's ETF's that track the s&p 500 in respectively dollars and euros. I'm sure if you google a bit you can find a lot more index trackers.

Re: Ask HN: What do you use to buy and sell stocks?

#24

Post by kolev » Wed, Sep 10, 2014, 8:38 PM UTC

camillomiller wrote: post #13

kolev wrote: post #10

Robinhood, of course! Just kidding. What's going on with that? It's been months and I haven't heard of them. It really doesn't make sense to make all that noise and then go offline for months so that people totally forget about you.

I checked just yesterday and I'm like 24k-th in line--I was 300k-th when I signed up. That means tens of thousand of people should have already been granted access. Even with that potential user base I still can't find a single review of the service online.

Maybe you invited others and moved up. When I joined, my place was 30K-something, now I'm about 8K behind, i.e. people cut me in line.

Re: Ask HN: What do you use to buy and sell stocks?

#25

Post by caw » Fri, Sep 12, 2014, 1:14 PM UTC

iends wrote: post #18

caw wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I use Vanguard as well, most of my trades with them are their ETFs or Mutual Funds so it's no fee (I don't trade very often, maybe every 6 months to rebalance). My stocks are predominantly in Fidelity because I have their 2%-back-on-everything AMEX, which rolls into my Fidelity Brokerage account. $7.95 trades which I think is pretty standard for mega-bank retail trades without trade volume or account balance discount…

I've been thinking about switching to the Fiedlity Amex but it has terrible reviews. Have you had and problems with the customer service?

No, but at the same time I've never needed their CS. The one time I've called was to inform of international travel. Total time spent on the call was less than 5 minutes. Did the same thing for my Visa card and that took over 15.

My only other interaction with them is when they send me new cards to activate, like if my card is going to expire or they want to issue me a new number. Activation is all automated and takes 2 minutes.

Fidelity brokerage I think is a separate service organization, and have had no problems with them either about account questions.