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Strategies & Market Trends : Value Investing -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Spekulatius who wrote (26025)	2/15/2007 2:39:39 PM
From: Carl Worth	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 78748

i own BAC and have for years, so i watch the yahoo chat board to some extent, and read various articles, along with listening to the conference calls for ETFC, which i also own i have seen numerous complaints regarding BAC since they started this "free" trading offer...most of them talk about not being able to get filled when a stock is moving fairly rapidly...if you are trying to buy 1000 shares of something and you have to move your price up even a dime because your initial order doesn't fill, that's 100 bucks you just overpaid...how many "free" trades does that wipe out? or what if you miss the trade entirely, because you don't want to up your offer, and the stock moves up a couple bucks? there go all your free trades for a few years now obviously you are going to see the complaints on such things and seldom, if ever, see the praise when they work well, but i've dealt with many brokers in the course of almost 20 years of doing this stuff, and i know what it's like to get poor executions...the kind of clients that ETFC and AMTD are after aren't likely to switch to BAC or WFC to get a few free trades, because they have likely seen the results at those kinds of brokers, so why risk it for a few free trades? as i mentioned, i do most of my business at IB, but even if i was back to the old brownco rates, i wouldn't switch my accounts to BAC or WFC for free commissions, because i have no idea what kind of service i would get, and at least in the case of BAC, options, mutual funds, and other types of trades are not included in the free deal, so right away i would be having to segment my assets into even more accounts (IB doesn't offer mutual funds either, that's part of the reason i still have some money at etrade) trades at etrade are 6.99, so 100 free trades is basically 700 bucks a year...after taxes that's maybe 40 bucks a month...i don't see many active traders switching brokers and chancing poorer service to save 40 bucks a month, especially since once the free trades are used up, they will probably be paying higher commissions for the rest of the year as always, JMHO

To: Spekulatius who wrote (26025)	4/10/2007 10:12:16 AM
From: Spekulatius	Respond to of 78748

OT (somewhat) regarding WFC & Free trades I did open my Welltrade account PMA checking combo with 100 free trades and so far like it. Trading interface is basic but functional. They do not have a quote streamer for example. I did not notice any executions problems with my limit orders so far. Execution and speed seems fine for occasional traders. I do like the fact that cash earns 4.6%+ regardless of balance in my brokerage account. I peruse the brokerage account as a backup savings account for checking (WFC PMA is my backup checking). I also learned that I could open several brokerage accounts (IRA etc.) with Wellstrade and get 100 free trades with each account as long as they are attached to the PMA checking account. Furthermore the 100 free trades apply to mutual funds as well. It looks to me that banks get more like brokerages and brokerages more like banks. ETrade had just added a online savings as well as interest checking accounts to their growing list of services as well. Not a bad thing to put short term cash there considering the lousy interest rates Etrade is paying in their regular brokerage account. As we discussed before i do not think that free trades are the end of the discount brokerage industry but i do think that trading commisions are bound to come down as a consequence of offers from BAC, WFC or Zecco and this is great for investors.