I've been using Lombard for a month now, and am happy with them. $14.95 on market orders, $19.95 on limit orders up to 5000 shares. The online trading web site is pretty well laid out, and relatively fast. Also, when I've needed help, they've been really easy to get on the phone and very helpful. Good charting and some research is available too. Oh and the thing I really like, unlimited REAL-TIME quotes - no 15 minute delays for this boy! Decent margin rates too.
I shopped a lot of internet brokers before going with Lombard. There was a review in the January HomePC magazine of 17 online brokers. You can get it at homepcmag.com. Title was "Taking stock of brokers" and it was in two parts, one was a chart with URL's, prices and phone numbers. I tried a lot of the web sites and most were excruciatingly slow just to load the home pages. I hate slow sites and immediately dinged them. I figure that if they were slow when I was just looking around at an off hour, they must crawl or stop when the markets are in a frenzy. Lombard seemed the fastest to load when I went there. In fact at times they seemed to load faster than stuff off my disk drive and I'm blazing on a fully loaded 200Mhz Pentium Pro with a top of the line, state of the art #9 Imagine II video card (I'm sure since we're both in the SF Bay Area helps their speed). Check it out at www.lombard.com, you can get an application online. One problem I had with Datek is that it is web access only, I'm sorry, but sometimes it is just better to talk with a person than to pass emails and wait for responses. I'm trading a $1/2 million portfolio and time can definitely be money. If you want to trade Bulletin Board or Foreign stocks, they can handle it, but only by phone. I haven't done these with them yet, I maintain a small account at Smith-Barney for such trades and for full service access (although I find I can get better more relevant research off the net myself usually).
However, I also track my portfolio and stocks I'm watching in Yahoo, (I believe it works best with Netscape Navigator) they've got a good set up that links directly with profiles (that have lots of links), charts, research and news pages, and the news links and headlines automatically appear at the bottom of the portfolio with links. It's pretty well done, free and usually pretty fast. Also have all the needed wire service links and a cool new push service MY YAHOO that gives you a customizable ticker that can stay on top of all other programs. A great way to keep an eye on breaking news, quotes, indexes, sports scores, etc. while you type away here on SI.
Oh, and absolute required reading for newbies is the Motley Fool and www.fool.com It is known as the best site for educating new investors. You too can be a fool. Myself, I'm only somewhat foolish as I break their rules. I carry a BIG margin and only trade biotecs and medical device stocks at this point - I'm an individual venture capitalist at heart. Of course, having worked in biotech since '85, I have a pretty good understanding of the science and the business involved.
Oh yeah, and get intimate with SI it is a great site with tons of hot info and contacts.
Good luck, may the forces be with you, and none of your cats die.
Or may all your dead cats bounce.
Hope you find this helpful.
Dave |
