Why Sharebuilder??
They reached out and wrapped their loving arms around me with a $50 bonus!!
Kinda gives you that grabby warm fuzzy feeling, doesn't it?
So, I reached out and grabbed them back!
I was waiting to say why I chose to open a Sharebuilder account now. There is a $50 promotion right now for opening an account there and making a trade.
I'm not sure how long the promotion lasts but here's the letter I just got via email from Sharebuilder. You might want to open one yourself. This offer is not affiliated with me, but another blogger from another website.
"Thank you for opening your ShareBuilder account. To receive your $50 Web Channel Offer, all you need to do is purchase a stock or ETF in either your Automatic Investment Plan or through a real-time trade by 02/05/2011. If you have not set up your investment plan or real-time trade yet, schedule your first trade today.
For your reference, the Promotion Code is FILIFE50.
Thank you for selecting ShareBuilder.
Sincerely,
etc., etc."
Great! I wrote them a note because it did not immediately show up in the account, so I started wondering. This letter just came after about 2 hours from the starting time. Doubtful it is in response to my note, but just on a normal time delay.
I did set my account to be automatically drafted after the first of the year, so I am assuming that the bonus will be credited at that time.
One way of looking at it is "I can use that free $50 to execute 12.5 trades at $4 fee a pop."
OR "I can use $46 of it to buy into my new Goldman Sachs position w/the house paying the $4.00 fee." Either way works for me.
December 28th, 2007 at 06:35 pm 1198866949
I'm pondering "semi-active trading" some time in the near future, and will probably need to find an appropriate brokerage....
I haven't settled on one yet though. What are the pros and cons of sharebuilder?
December 28th, 2007 at 07:24 pm 1198869857
If you go w/ the basic account I believe you pay $4 per trade w/no monthly fee. The provisio on that is that those are all bundled into Tuesday trades. They do bulk purchasing on Tuesday which if you are trying to time the market shoots you in the foot. You can do realtime trades there for a fee of I think $9.95 per trade.
I'm comfortable w/the Tuesday only trades as I've done similarly with my DRIPS in the past thru NAIC.
Anyway, check out the pricing structure. I wouldn't have probably gone w/Sharebuilder except for the $50 bonus. Same way I went w/Ameritrade because I got the Suze Orman bonus deal.
The spouse and I have our retirement accounts with Fidelity and I'm happy with them and their service. Vanguard is another big house I'd be willing to trade under.
Neither one of them was offering the free bonus deals! Ha!
Oh well, it may just be for a time that I'm under Sharebuilder. Zecco is another interesting option and for someone who's looking to be rather active at it the cheaper you can keep those costs the better!
December 28th, 2007 at 10:27 pm 1198880856
Yeah, I've been seriously considering Zecco... assuming that I get active enough to warrant it. Otherwise, I am fairly certain that I am mostly a buy-and-hold type.
Thanks, and let me know how it turns out!
December 31st, 2007 at 12:45 am 1199061949