Online Stock Trading

TD Ameritrade Offeres 45 Days Free Trades

Open an account before December 31, 2006 and TD Ameritrade will give you 45 days of free trades.

Fund any non-IRA account with $25,000 and you'll also receive $100 cash in your online trading account.  Fund your account with a minimum of $2,000 and you'll receive the 45 Days of commission free trades.

Dell downgraded by Banc of America Securities

Feb 17, 2006.  Dell was downgraded to neutral from buy at Banc of America Securities. "We see several headwinds - continued operating margin pressure and slow growth in operating income; continued weak margins in the consumer business; continued slowing U.S. PC unit growth rate; and slowing growth rates in enterprise servers due to greater competition, especially from H-P," the broker said.

Discount Stock Broker

Discount Broker. Discount brokerages do not offer any advice or research - they simply transact your trades with no frills. Because they manage fewer products than their full-service counterparts, discounters charge considerably lower fees. They also often offer online computer order entry services. Live brokers at these brokerages are usually paid a fixed salary to execute your trades. They don't solicit, and they aren't paid commissions. Discount brokerages make money by doing business in volume, competing mostly on price and "reliability" of the service: if they have the lowest prices and the best service, they get the most trades.

Online Brokers Merging

  A takeover skirmish among three of the nation's largest online stock brokerages erupted over the weekend, potentially leading to a significant reorganization of the industry.

E*Trade Financial made an unsolicited bid Friday to buy Ameritrade Holdings for more than $5.5 billion in a letter to its board, according to executives involved in the talks.

    Ameritrade, meanwhile, has been holding secret negotiations to buy TD Waterhouse, the executives said.

The boards, managements and advisers of all three companies spent the weekend plotting their next moves. Competitors like Charles Schwab also spent telephone time discussing where they might fit in, executives said.

Representatives for E*Trade, which is based in New York, and Ameritrade, which is based in Omaha, Neb., declined to comment. A spokesman for TD Waterhouse, which is based in New York, could not be reached for comment.

In a recent research report, Michael Hecht, an analyst at Banc of America Securities, noted that the management of E*Trade "believes that the discount brokerage industry is ripe for consolidation and hopes to participate."

"To the extent weak equity markets put pressure on the group's economics, consolidation becomes more likely," Hecht added.

Consolidation among the online brokerage firms, now seen by executives as a necessary step in a struggle for survival, is expected to reach down to investors and the prices they pay to trade stocks.

The showdown illustrates just how much pressure the online brokerage firms are under as the stock market and trading volumes continue to be weak, never having returned to the heights of day trading in the late 1990s.

The traditional Wall Street firms, considered dinosaurs only several years ago compared with the upstarts, have remained resilient as many investors have preferred the hand-holding of brokers rather than the anonymity of mouse-clicks.

For the last several years, with so many online brokers trying to steal business from one another and their more traditional bricks-and-mortar rivals, the commission fees that investors pay have fallen sharply, both online and off.

Online brokerage firms offer deals now for investors to pay as little as $8.95 a trade and some offer 20 or more commission-free trades as an incentive to sign up with the services.

Analysts suggest that the steep decline in commission fees will likely flatten or even rise as the online brokerages merge.

TD Waterhouse is owned by the Toronto-Dominion Bank, which has held unsuccessful talks about selling TD Waterhouse to both E*Trade Financial and Charles Schwab, which is based in San Francisco. More recently Schwab and Waterhouse have been adversaries. In March, Schwab sued TD Waterhouse, saying that a Waterhouse ad campaign had falsely labeled Schwab a high-priced firm with inferior service. Waterhouse stood by its ads.

Speculation of a deal between E*Trade and Ameritrade took hold Friday after E*Trade canceled meetings with investors in Europe and scaled back a stock buyback program, according to Richard Repetto, an analyst at Sandler O'Neill & Partners who follows both companies.

Though he downplayed the possibility of a quick deal, Repetto said, "Consolidation makes a lot of sense."

Of the two companies, E*Trade has been somewhat buffered from the slump in stock trading because it has a bank that sells mortgages among other products--although that business, too, could suffer as interest rates rise.

E*Trade also owns a business that could process trades for Ameritrade's customers, were the two businesses to combine, said Charlotte Chamberlain, an analyst at the broker Jefferies & Company.

A merger between E*Trade and Ameritrade would place more pressure on Charles Schwab. The company, long an industry giant, has shaken up its management and cut commissions several times over the last few months in an effort to regain ground lost in recent years to smaller, more nimble competitors like E*Trade and Ameritrade.
                                                        By                                Andrew Ross  Sorkin                        
               The New York Times

Online Discount Broker OptionxXpress

CHICAGO, March 7 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- In its annual review of online brokers, the March 7, 2005 edition of Barron's names Chicago-based optionsXpress (Nasdaq: OXPS - News) the top browser-based brokerage for the third consecutive year. In what Barron's referred to as a "remarkable display of consistency," optionsXpress was the only Online Discount Brokerage browser-based to receive a 4 1/2 star ranking in this year's survey.

Through its subsidiaries optionsXpress, an online brokerage, and brokersXpress, an online trading and reporting platform for independent investment professionals, the company offers a wide range of investor tools, licensed customer service and competitive commissions. OptionsXpress has been named the top online securities brokerage by Barron's in its last three annual surveys (2003, 2004 and 2005) and the top discount securities brokerage by SmartMoney in 2004. It was also named "Favorite Options Site" by Forbes Best of the Web in 2004.

Online Stock Trading

Stock market trading doesn't have to be for the elite or financially well-versed anymore--you can make money with stock market trading, with a little help.

With Stock Market Trading, no matter what your skill level, the need to stay abreast of market trends and stock performance is paramount. Luckily, you can access stock market trading expert advice by email each day, by subscribing to stock market trading newsletters.

There are numerous stock market trading newsletters and resources on the internet, all attempting to help people become experts of online stock trading. When choosing an internet stock trading newsletter or guide, make sure that the source is legitimate.

Know your source, and make sure that you take full advantage of legitimate resources. If you play by these rules you will be the newest online stock market trading mogul.

Online Trading

If you are new to the whole Online Trading world you may find this simple description helpful. Online Trading is simply the faciliatation of Stock Trading through online means, via the internet or maybe even your cell phone (thought we would call that Mobile Trading). Online Trading often has advantages like lower costs associated with it. Realize you may pay more to submit trades via phone or in person if you have a primary Online Trading account.