I have TDameritrade forever, have in the past 18 months opened a Interactive Brokers (IB) account. IB trades are very cheap (like 1$ for up to 200 shares), but there is a 10$ minimum per month. While TD is like 8 or 9$ a trade but no monthly fee.

I'm for all intensive purposes a long term focus investor, hoping not to make too many trades a month/year. If you're dealing with less than 50k in your account it's not an insignificant yearly dock of your capital.

There are some places that offer free trades with a minimum balance of 25k+ right? Anyone done some research on this?

Depends on what you want. Do you want a cheap broker who ONLY allows you to trade stocks and options? I'd go with Trade King. Do you want a broker who is "full service" and offers everything to trade, from stocks/options to commodities and currencies to bonds and ETFs? I'd go with Interactive Brokers. Do you want superior execution without much slippage in price? Well, they don't exist yet. But it all depends on what YOU want out of the broker, that would be the "best"

Do the math man. Multiply trade frequency by cost, add in fixed cost for IB, and figure out who's cheaper. IB's $10/month fee is for data, so if you can go months with data turned off (and just use google finance etc.) because you're not trading then IB is cheaper than they appear. IB will even turn your data bundle off for you if you don't use it I think.

In general fixed rate discount brokers like TD Ameritrade screw small customers in favor of large ones since exchange fees are variable with shares but the broker's fee is constant.

IB is the linux of brokers

I tried out scottrade and have been happy with them so far. Slightly cheaper trades than ameritrade. Slightly less fancy interface.

IB is also good but as stated you need to be an active trader to make the cheap trades actually cheap. Otherwise you're paying $10 a month for nothing.

Questrade any good if residing in Canada?

IB has a minimum balance of 10k. That is way out of my budget right now!

I previously only had experience with Questrade and it is fairly expensive on costs per trade and margin, in addition it never has shares available to short and limited after hours trading. That being said $5.00 flat trade isnt bad if you are trading large quantities of small cap stocks. They also do not charge ECNs on US listed stocks. I also found the software laggy at times and slow to execute trades. All that being said it's probably the best of the canadian brokers.

I recently signed up for IB and it has blown me away. My trading commissions are 50-75% cheaper, always has shares available for short and full after hours. Cheap margin. The software is much more complicated and maybe not as pretty but it has amazing depth of configurations and extremely fast.

I really cannot imagine going back to another broker after using IB. It's comical how much more expensive they are.

IB is the best if you trade semi-often or more.

I have a lot w/ Vanguard since I don't trade that much in my PA. Also have some w/ TD Ameritrade but I probably trade once a month or less there.

TD/tos is the best platform and the website has many tools but you pay for it with commissions. If you are a frequent trader, then IB is the best choice.

So I currently use Schwab and pay 7.95 / 0.25 per contract. Anyone know what IB charges per contract?

I'm sure someone knows...

Oh look it's on their website
https://www.interactivebrokers.com/e...ion&p=options1