"...After the first month's free trial, clients may subscribe to the company's buy, sell, hold commentaries, stock quotation and information service for $9.95 per month (15 minute delayed)
or $29.95 per month (real time). FlexQuote customers who open a new stock brokerage account with a participating stock broker, and generate a minimum of $50 trading commissions per month will have their service paid for by the stock broker. The minimum balance varies from $5,000 to $25,000 depending on the level of customer trading activity, the stock broker and the brokerage firm."
The art of ambiguity is well practiced here - WHICH service will be free? The $9.95 delayed quotes or the $29.95 "live" quotes? It's not stated, is it?
And it's far from free - if you're required to go with an $18.95 per trade brokerage to get it "free", compared to using a $10 commission brokerage with no frills, that $8.95 per trade extra cost can make a HUGE difference each month if you're an active trader. Hell, just 5 trades a month costs much more that the $29.95 you'd pay for FQ directly or another similar service. But just 5 trades a month might mean a much higher minimum account is required.
But if you're a frequent trader and do 12 trades a month you'll get FQ free (and a lower minimum) but the extra fees paid doing 18.95 commission trades adds up to over $100 extra per month as compared to using the $10/trade online brokerage. So in fact you are worse off getting FQ for "free" in that scenario and better off going to (or staying with) your lower cost brokerage and buying a real-time quote service for $29.95 or $39.95 or whatever.
Remember, no matter how it's done someone is paying something for the quote service; ultimately it is you who uses it, via higher commissions and higher minimum size account (lower flexibiity for you) in order to get the "free" FQ. There's still no free lunch.
Life's a series of tradeoffs, it seems, Bill. That kind of analysis is going to occur to anyone considering signing up with a broker so as to get "free" quotes, even if the deal does feature free real-time quotes. Sounds good on paper until you put a pencil to it.
Dee Jay |
