Is Scottrade any good compared to others?

On their website when I look at their comparisons to other companies I see a great bit of difference. Scottrade looks like they are better. They have $7 commissions and only need $500 to open an account.

I don't know what options and margins are. Can someone enlighten me on that. I want to buy Vanguard funds and Scottrade offers a better deal for that.

Scottrade is the least expensive as long as they can provide all the services you need.

If you only want to buy Vanguard funds, you may be better off going directly through Vanguard.

Margin is the ability to borrow money against your investments. This will increase your risk, and therefore can be riskier. I don't recommend it for a novice investor though. You could lose everything using margin when the market starts to drop.

Options mean you would be trading in "derivatives" of the stocks, such as an option to buy a stock at a set price or an option to sell it at a set price. These investments are complex don't worry about them till you have traded for a while.

Scottrade has been fine for us. Their website isn't laid out great, but neither is anyone elses! (Don't ask me why)

Their low commissions are nice. I haven't had an issue w/ them. And I have had issues (really bad service, lost documents) w/ another on line broker (Ameritrade).

Anyway, a margin account is basically a loan where you can buy extra stock. It is based on your account assetts (say like 50% of your account value). Once you buy stock w/ it, you owe interest on the loan until you have your assetts in cash to settle the loan.

Options are more complex, and I'd recommend reading from a book on those rather than trusting Yahoo! answers.

One more thought, if you're going to invest in funds, not stocks, you may look into investing directly into the fund. You may save yourself commission on those purchases, since the funds already take out fees to pay for their service to you (buying and selling stocks) you are essentially duplicating that by going through a broker.

Tags

　　Venture Investment 　　Venture Capitalist 　　Venture Capital 　　VC Fund 　　Vanguard Fund 　　Value Investment 　　Trust Investment 　　Stock Investment

Related information

Do index funds pay dividends?

Yes both of the funds will pay dividends from the stocks that pay dividends and are in the underlying indexs. The most recent yield for the vangard 500 index fund can be found here.

...

Split rollover IRA?

No, you can transfer as much as you want, up to the total amount (subject to the minimums of both accounts). Transfers from a Rollover IRA to a regular pre-tax IRA are OK. Just do a direct transf...

Can I investy in Vanguard when i get 18?

Yes, but you can invest before that if your parents fill out tthe necessary forms. See this Vanguard link about UGMA/UTMA accounts. ...

Roth Ira in oil stocks?

What does the R stand for? It may not be extremely wise to as the saying goes to "Put all you eggs in one basket." After all it is your retirement funds you are dealing with. Certainly...

Are Vanguards Target Retirment Funds part of the ROTH IRA?

The Roth IRA is simply a type of account. You can put anything inside of it--cash, CDs, bonds, bond funds, ETFs, individual stocks, mutual funds, index fund, and--yes--that includes target retirem...

What can I do with my 401K?

All you need to do is to ask Vangiard for the money. They will send you a check for 80% of it and 20% to the IRS to start to cover the income taxes you'll owe. Taxes will be at your normal rat...

Are Target Retirement Funds index funds?

A target retirement fund is not an index fund. Rather it is a fund that consists of a collection of other funds in the family that changes as you become older. A TSM is a type of index fund. The...

Alternative energy?

Vanguard sells only one alternative energy mutual fund. It is Guiness Atkinson Alternative Energy Fund (GAAEX). They have a high expense ratio of 1.98%. While I respect your desire to in...