TradeKing Review

TradeKing Overview

TradeKing may be the best broker you never heard of. Certainly, you know a few names of online brokers from those that do TV advertising of have been around a few decades. And you know a few of the old, established brokerage houses that are now squarely in the online space. But then there are a bunch of newer brokerages that were created to serve the online space exclusively. You may feel comfortable choosing one of the names you know and not comfortable with some of these newer names, not willing to risk your hard-earned trading dollars on a new name.

But take a hard look at TradeKing. Yes, they are not an old name, but their ratings from highly reliable financial sources are right up there with the big boys. And with TradeKing, you’ll get some features that are well suited to new traders or those that are trading on a smaller scale. These include low, flat-rate pricing, nearly half what some of the established names charge. There is no minimum account balance, something that can be important to new traders. And unusual among all online brokers, there is no upcharge for broker-assisted trades.

TradeKing also offers a very good selection of educational materials, available to anyone and not just to those who have an account with them. And they have a big focus on Technical Analysis, both in terms of educational material and trading tools. This type of analysis is the bread and butter of short-term trading and TradeKing gives you the tools necessary to learn what you need to know and put it into practice.

TradeKing doesn’t offer the additional services of some larger brokerages, like checking accounts, mortgages or foreign market trading. But it focuses on an area that is so important and too often overlooked by all types of companies these days – Customer Service. TradeKing was rated number one in customer service among all online brokers by SmartMoney – The Wall Street Journal magazine in 2008 (they rated second in the latest survey). This is pretty incredible considering some of the big names they are up against. With all these strengths, TradeKing targets the new trader and the smaller trader and has really established itself through subscriber growth and consistently high reviews and ratings from multiple sources.

View the Current Promotion for opening up a new TradeKing account

TradeKing Services

- Mutual Funds and Bonds - Yes
- Banking Services - No
- Foreign Market Trading - No
- Quality of Research Tools - Three Stars in SmartMoney 2009 Broker Survey
- Quality of Trading Tools/Trading Platform - Five Stars in SmartMoney 2009 Broker Survey
- Mobile Phone Trading - Yes
- Local branch offices - No

TradeKing Commissions & Fees

- Cost Per Trade: $4.95
- Additional Trading Fees: Add $0.01 per share for stocks priced $1.00 or less.
$100 minimum per order in OTCBB and Pink Sheet stocks
- Account Minimum Balance: None
- Broker Assisted Trades: $4.95
- Account Maintenance Fees: None
- Account Transfer Fee: $50.00

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