Hi Bernard...we have three accounts at Olde here at Palos Verdes, CA. We choose Olde because it's the cheapest full service discount brokerage in our neighborhood ( Dean Witter and Merrill Lynch is just down the street but you know they are expensive). We wanted a brokerage nearby because we occasionally stop by to pick up research report updates and just to chat with the brokers in person. While we do our own stockpicking, sometimes I ask for the broker's opinion just for a different perspective. I remember when the MCI and BT merger was announced...I wanted to jump in buy some MCI. Marcus, my father's broker talked me out of it. Without getting into the details, here you have a broker who sacrificed his commission to point out a potential unwise investment. My own broker, Allan, shares the same investment ideals as me so we get along great. Of all the trades that I have placed up to date, they have been executed and confirmed within a minute. I also have an account at Dean Witter in Pasadena but will be closing it shortly due to the high commission.
Some key points about Olde
1. Free IRA's (no maintenance fees) and the first trade is free.
2. For traders, they have something called the Round Trip commission, a 50 % cut in commissions on the closing transaction when securities are sold withing 31 days of purchase.
3. As Bernard has pointed out, if you have assets over 500k, you don't pay commission when trading 1000+ shares.
4. Also, no commisssion trading 1000+ shares on stocks they follow.
(confirm this own your own)
5. Money market accounts pay either the highest or second highest in the nation, I think it's currently at 5.5 % with free
check writing priviledges (check the restrictions though)
6. Listed options are 15 per trade plus 3 to 5 bucks per contract.
(min. fee is 40 except if you do ROUND TRIP)
7. Also bonds...ah...forget it.
JOE |
