Cost	Cost Basis	Min Trades	Min Assets	Min Fee	Max Shares
0.015 $	per share		3500.00 $	5.00 $
9.95 $	per trade		3500.00 $		5000

Merrill Edge	0.00 - 8.95 $
Wells Fargo	0.00 - 19.95 $
Zecco	0.00 - 4.50 $
Share Builder	1.00 - 9.95 $
Just2Trade	2.50 $
Options House	2.95 $
Speed Trader	2.95 - 7.95 $
Sogo Trade	3.00 $
eOption	3.00 $
Marsco	3.95 $
MB Trading	4.95 $
Trade King	4.95 $
Firstrade	6.95 $
Trade Station	6.99 - 9.99 $
Scottrade	7.00 $
Trade Monster	7.50 $
Fidelity	7.95 $
Investrade	7.95 $
Noble Trading	7.95 $
Cobra Trading	7.99 $
ETrade	7.99 - 9.99 $
Charles Schwab	8.95 $
Options Xpress	9.95 - 14.95 $
Think Or Swim	9.95 $
TD Ameritrade	9.99 $
Siebert Net	14.95 $

Light Speed	0.00395 $
Cobra Trading	0.004 - 0.007 $
Speed Trader	0.004 $
MB Trading	0.0075 $
Interactive Brokers	0.008 - 0.013 $
Noble Trading	0.008 $
Trade Station	0.01 $
Think Or Swim	0.015 $

by 17g33k ( 50 ) on 2009-12-05 15:37:27
I joined thinkorswim about 7 months ago and it was one of the best online brokerages available. Thinkorswim offers two types of commission rates, per share or flat fee, and you can change this with each trade. The per share rate is $0.015 per share with a $5 minimum. The flat fee is $9.95 for up to 5,000 shares. I personally don't have tons of money to invest so the per share has allowed me to keep my trading fees down to $5. This is not the lowest available but leaves you making no compromises with quality of service as other brokerages do.

Thinkorswim allows you to trade not only stocks, but mutual funds, options, futures, and forex. Several other brokers only offer one or two of these types of investments. This is definitely a plus in my book.

Thinkorswim also offers a FREE application that is very customizable and displays everything in real-time. You can have your charts update every hour or every second depending on how you like to read them. The application also expands very nicely allowing you to open tons of chars and do various studies and comparisons. This is especially useful when using multiple computer screens. There are several companies that offer similar software that has the same functionality, but cost hundreds if not thousands of dollars.

Thinkorswim does require a $4,000 minimum to open an account, but once it is open and you begin trading, it doesn't hold you to that minimum and does not charge you any fees because of it. They also do not charge any monthly fees or inactivity fees which is important to me because my trading goes in phases of how active I am.

Overall, thinkorswim allows you to customize investing to your particular needs and gives you the tools you need to make good investment decisions.

The best part of joining thinkorswim is that they send you a free monkey wearing a thinkorswim t-shirt. :-P

---

by salleh7 ( 15 ) on 2009-10-24 13:59:03
Very good platform and user interface but ToS isn't the best broker. The charts update slowly and it seems that my orders sometimes take a long time to go through.

---

Please login or register to submit a review.