I'm going with Robinhood for the new investor. This is kind of a start to anyone who doesn't want to pay fees, but its extremely what you see is what you get. I think its a good start because it provides a very basic understanding of investing as a whole. While you do not have all availabilities of other accounts this is strictly for people interested in navigating the waters of the NYSE. So, I have a little bit in it, I'm happy with it.
Isn't there a safety issue with the whole phone app thing? I realize investors want to be mobile, but isn't there a problem with having such important information being used in a phone app? Anyway, both TradeKing and TD Ameritrade sound sweet. Thanks for the tip guys!
Yeah, I'm very paranoid about what I use to access personal financial and business info. I have a designated office computer that I only use for that purpose and nothing else.
Actually they make some really nice VPN clients for your phone now a days. All financial talk aside, you can look into a few different clients to keep your data safe. I'm pretty security driven myself and the app that I was talking about uses the same bank level security as other institutions as well as your typical SSL (256 bit encryption) with all of that said, I also point to the fact that Robinhood holds my play money and no connections to any accounts that have anything to it. You can never be too careful now a days, if I didn't have trust in the business/group or financial institution then I wouldn't have anything to do with them. I already was young, dumb and broke a few times. Great thoughts though, definitely good considerations.
This makes total sense to me. But has an obvious downside... How do you operate if you go on vacation or something? You mean like accounts that are only used to transfer to other accounts? Thanks guys!
If anyone has doubts, you can wholeheartedly go for Tradeking, it's got a lot of benefits, and you won't be disappointed. I've got to say though that, even if it's not bothering everyone, their mobile platform is available only for Android and iOS, whereas I still use my outdated Blackberry phone, so I'm kind of bothered myself. But this should be the slightest of its problems.
I like Fidelity for their full service. Retirement and brokerage accounts, plus online banking. I've written an average of 3 paper checks per year, otherwise pay bills online. The ATM card fees are automatically refunded. I find the mobile app is sufficient for 98% of my needs. I'd like to see one change in the mobile app: (1) create new bill payees. And on the web site itself: HTML5-compliant code so I could watch the online seminars on my Android tablet and/or phone.