more about brokerages...
Steve, I moved from Dreyfus to CompuTel because PBS didn't get security running and forced me to trade Dell-leaps via phone. It's nearly impossible for me to communicate in English complex stuff - of course by far harder speaking than writing.
Dell-leaps are expensive stuff, and I just couldn't stay this situation - remember, often enough traders are not accessible, lines are bad or traders doesn't speak US-English but Texas-English (g). What American guy can communicate in German with an Bavarian or with DJ (g)?
OK - just one week after I drew away about 400k US$ from Dreyfus, they changed their minds: it was (again) allowed to trade Dell-leaps through the net, and my browser showed a golden key. (actually I use MS IE 4, but I don't now the English word for this symbol there...)
First the (Computel)-promises (German speaking agents in near future) and $24 per trade + $1 per contract seem attractive - but they add a handling-fee of $2.50 to each order, and you (normally) cannot order more than 50 contracts (or 20k principal), so that you hardly can take profits from the "better" conditions.
However, I will return to Dreyfus as soon as I have a legal address and a "home"-account with a bank here in Netherlands - it's a lot of paperwork when you move, I think, you know that better than me.
I check several alternative brokerages again and again, read the comparison-tables, reports and so on. But my main-business ("investing" leaps) depends on not too high commissions on option-trades - and (except Dreyfus and Computel) there is nothing what you could pay.
But fair commissions are not all I need - so is Computel not able to route my SAP-options to CBOE (except via "life"-broker), and this meant 1/8 difference in the price - a lot of money when you're holding 600 contracts.
Computel is not generally "bad" - it's just not professionell, every can visite their site and "enjoy" how the homepage is loading during "minutes" cause of sh** decoration-stuff. Some day I have to handle a dozen or more orders as quick as possible - neither Datek nor Computel nor Dreyfus can that handle satisfying; but E*Trade, Discover and others were by far slower when I visited their sites - even outside the hours.
Every can check that I never recommended Computel - and I confirm this missing recommendation with all my heart. I frequently recommended Datek for Stock-investors (NOT for day-traders) and Dreyfus for every handling of equity-options, and that's still true in my humble opinion.
That's enough, n'est-ce pas?
Friday Clinton should be "free". Ergo: Next week my friends in US will buy again like stupid (that's I hope...). I'm 30% "in" (Spätzle, C and KO), stay and wait till Feb 26th (Michaelsday) - if we will not see some rescue till then, I'll dump all and wait for the easterhazy.
Happy trading!
Jury |
