Which Online Brokers Should You Trust?
Click Here To Check Out My Favorite Online Broker, Questrade!
This isn’t some empty “recommendation” or “review” of an online broker that I have never used.
If you ask me “Hey Dave, which online brokers are the best?”, I can only recommend brokers that I have actually used - brokers that I have actually opened accounts with.
Over my time as an online trader, I have used a wide array of different companies. Some companies that I loved are no longer with us, swallowed up by larger companies that ruined the software forever.
Other companies have popped up, and I have heard such good things about them that I had to try them out for myself.
I have three brokers that I can recommend without blinking an eye - Questrade, Interactive Brokers and ThinkorSwim.
I have used all three of these brokers for years. I still maintain active accounts at all three brokerages.
Do I trust these three online stock brokerages? Yes.
Would I recommend these online brokerages to a family member? Yes.
Would I sign up for these brokerages again? Yes.
Here are some quick thoughts about each of the three brokerages:
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Questrade is based in Canada, but they still accept clients from nearly every country in the world. Questrade is a well-run operation that has many good people working at the company. Commissions are reasonable, and the company has a number of innovative offerings.
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Interactive Brokers also provides its customers with an API, meaning that you can build add-on applications to help in your trading if you are so inclined (or use other people’s publicly available applications).
Interactive Brokers is a publicly traded company as well, if that type of thing is important to you.
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ThinkorSwim has a pretty fanatical following, especially amongst the option traders community. ThinkorSwim has also been able to build their following by:
a) listening to their customers
b) quickly attending to customer service issues
ThinkorSwim is like the Apple of online brokerages - a larger company that has been able to build a tremendously loyal client base through innovation and strong customer service.
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These are just my opinions, based on about 12 years’ worth of trading online. Always do your own due diligence when selecting a broker.
Filed under: Company Reviews