[Pigeon Drop]

There is no easy answer, it depends what you do and how much money you have. For myself, no one broker is optimum, so I have 3. It is best to have as few as possible, for simplicity and convenience and cost of having to move money every time you need it in a different account.

www.freetrade.com, offers free trades on stocks, no bonds or mutual funds, no customer service, no iras, money in/out by wire only. This is a back room operation at Ameritrade.

www.brownco.com, low prices, low margin rates, mutual funds with $5 commission and no holding period restrictions, overall a great deal

www.interactivebrokers.com, offers foreign currencies, futures, low commissions, seems to be highly automated and set up for the gambling set, i doubt they have mutual funds or individual corp bonds

It all depends what you need, what you do.

I have no account at any of these 3, they are on my list for consideration because I'm going to get out of one of my existing 3 due to them raising rates and continually trying to convert my account from a purely cheap/automated one to having a human broker.

[MaxxPain]

More info on Freetrade:
Right now 25 trades are free but beginning April 28, 2003, the first 20 equity trades you place during a given trading month will be commission-free. Commissions for your 21st and subsequent equity trades will be as follows:

21st - 100th trade: $3 per trade
101st-200th trades: $2 per trade
201st trade and above: $1 per trade

These commissions include market, limit, stop, stop-limit, short sell, odd-lot and OTCBB orders, and there is no limit on the number of shares within each equity order. I would like to remind you that until April 31, 2003, your subscription to Streamer®* is provided free of charge, and Level II* quotes are still only $9.99 per month. If you haven't done so already, you can still sign up to receive this special pricing on these subscription services for the months of March and April. After April 31 2003, your Streamer subscription will be charged at the low price of only $9.99 per month, and Level II quotes will be only $14.99 per month.
Freetrade is all electronic. No phone number, no mailing address. Funds must be wired, trades placed online, and customer service is through e-mail. I like this arrangement but some may not.

Freetrade also has option trading but it's not free.
Market Orders $8 + $1.75 per contract
Limit, Stop, and Stop Limit Orders $13 + $1.75 per contract

[Bird D Durr]

Brown & Co. suits me fine...............................

However...................as a subsidiary of JPM.....................who knows when it'll will go under......................

Not IF, but WHEN..................................

It'll be fun waiting in the long line on my Federal Insurance claim....................

[DrStool]

This weeks Barrooms rates the on-line brokers. 2 week free trial available. Subscription worth it just to read Abelson, the dean of bears. The rest is garbage.

Options Express rated number 1. First ever 4.5 star rating. I think a lot of stoolies use them.

I use Scottrade. Liked them until lately. Recently never have stock available to short. Necessitates a phone call. They can get the stock and short it. But this process takes a minute, as opposed to instantaneously on line.

How's Freetrade on executions?