***RESULTS of THREAD SURVEY***
Thanks to all that participated in the informal daytrading broker satisfaction survey. I received 35 replies regarding 18 firms. Unfortunately, many of the firms only had one reply, making it more difficult to have confidence in the results for these firms. For confidentiality, I am not posting the results for the firms with only one response.
The results are posted below, listed in order of their respective 'market share':
____________% of responses________avg trades/mo__________satisfaction
MB Trading__________7___________________82__________________7.2
E-Schwab____________4___________________39__________________7.3
E-Trade_____________3___________________73__________________4.7
Brown & Co__________2___________________31__________________8.5
CyberTrader_________2__________________100__________________7.5
AB Watley___________2___________________30__________________7.5
All-Tech____________2___________________80__________________6.5
Datek_______________2___________________70__________________5.5
DLJ Direct__________2___________________13__________________5.5
Castle Securities___1
Discover____________1
Fidelity____________1
I-Street (RT3)______1
Polar Trading_______1
Preferred Capital___1
Seattle Online______1
Waterhouse__________1
Yamner______________1
Note that the satisfaction scores were based on the following scale:
1 = BAD, 3 = Mediocre, 5 = Average, 7 = Very good 10 = Outstanding!
The data seems to show several key results:
1) MB Trading clearly has the highest market share of the respondents, with 20% of all responses citing them as their broker.
2) Among direct entry firms, the satisfaction scores for MB Trading, CyberTrader and AB Watley were all comparable. AllTech was not rately as highly, and Datek was given the poorest of ratings.
3) Among the traditional discount brokers E-Schwab and particularly Brown & Company were rated very highly. DLJ Direct was rated poorly, and E-trade received the worst ratings of all (Confirming the need for the popular "E-Trade Sucks" thread.
One final caution: Please realize that this survey is based on a limited amount of data and is not "statistically significant". Or, as the statisticians would say: "The margin of error for this survey is ... a bunch"
Thanks for participating! If anyone wants to get a late survey back to me, please send me a PM. If I get enough additional data, I will update and post the results.
-Eric |
