Firstrade is a New York-based online and mobile trading discount investment brokerage firm. Founded in 1985 it’s been around a good deal longer than many of the online investment brokers and programs that are popping up all over the web. It has investment options and resources that will appeal to most investors. For more information see our recent review of Firstrade.
Firstrade Services
Firstrade offers the full range of investment options including:
- Stocks
- Options
- Mutual funds (over 11,000)
- Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs)
- Bonds
- Treasuries and agencies
- Certificates of Deposit (CDs)
The company also offers custodial accounts, Education Savings Accounts (ESAs), including Coverdell accounts, and the full range of individual retirement accounts (IRA‘s). This includes traditional and Roth IRAs, and SEP and SIMPLE IRAs, as well as retirement rollover accounts.
Firstrade Fees
The news on the fee front is mostly all good. There is no minimum deposit amount to open a Firstrade account, nor are there any inactivity or maintenance fees.
Firstrade’s transaction fees are lower than many of the major discount brokerages, including TD Ameritrade, E-Trade, Fidelity and Charles Schwab.
Online stock trades are $6.95 per trade. Online mutual fund trades are $9.95 for no load funds. And online option orders are $6.95, plus .75 per contract. Bonds and other fixed income investments are on a net yield basis in which the securities are subject to a mark-up collected by Firstrade.
The company charges $26.95 per trade (plus option contract charges) for broker assisted trades.
Firstrade Features
Firstrade investing tools include mobile trading, free streaming investment quotes, a customizable account dashboard, and stock trades come with a “one second execution guarantee”. It also offers extended trading hours from 8:00 am to 5:30 pm (Eastern time). Services are also available in Chinese (Mandarin and Cantonese) on the website and the toll free help line.
Firstrade is packed with free services:
- The company charges no fees for IRA accounts, and also has a retirement calculator to help you plan your retirement investing.
- Free trades on their ten most popular ETFs.
- Free, automatic reinvestment of dividends under dividend re-investment plans (DRIPs)
The company also offers competitively priced margin loans. Rates range from 7.5% on balances below $50,000, to 5.0% for accounts of $1 million or more.
Is Firstrade worth checking out?
For most investors, the answer to this question is a resounding yes. Firstrade isn’t necessarily the best in all that they do, but pretty good at most of what they do.
The company has the full range of investment options, and it’s combination of free services and transaction fees that are lower than much of the competition, can lower the cost of investing and improve long term results. The site itself offers the tools needed to keep you up to the minute on your investments, as well as to research and do projections as needed.
Since the company has been around since 1985, they’ve withstood the test of time, which included several serious market downturns in that time. That provides a solid picture of management’s capabilities, as well as the success of their business model.
Firstrade Promo
Firstrade is currently offering to rebate the account transfer fee charged by another broker for up to $200. The offer is available on account transfers of $10,000 or more, and applies to both new customers and those who already have an account with Firstrade.
One of the more attractive features of this offer is that it applies to transfers from multiple accounts. There are a couple of glitches involved in this promotion. One is that the promotion is handled by a rebate. That will require filling out the appropriate forms and then waiting up to 30 days for your account to be credited.
Another is that after the initial $10,000 transfer, subsequent transfers require a minimum of $20,000. In addition, the amount transferred excludes mutual funds and fixed income products.
The promotion started on December 12, 2011, and has no expiration date at this time. For more information on this promotion, click on the link below.
Firstrade Promotion Code is from Investor Junkie Copyright © Empowering Media, Inc.