TradeKing Review

TradeKing is an online discount brokerage firm that was started in 2005. The reasons why I choose TradeKing were simple. As much as I like and use Fidelity for most of my trades, I felt it was a great way to get experience with another discount stock broker. I also wanted to find a broker best suited for the type of trading I would be performing within the my WTF account.

The signup process to TradeKing was easy, but unfortunately funding can take up to seven days. I wish their funding process was easier. Once funded though, the rest of their service was great. I’ve been a TradeKing customer for over one year, and this is an update to my original review.

TradeKing’s Commissions and Fees

As of January 1st, 2012 TradeKing requires at least some annual activity with any account. If not they have an annual charge of $50. The requirements are minimal:

• The combined account value of the household account(s) is less than $2,500
• No commission-charged trades have been executed in the account(s) during the last 12 months

If you have less than $2,500 to invest, my suggestion is you shouldn’t investing yet anyways.

Security

Their login process via a web browser (not by a mobile device mind you), is somewhat security conscious, but also somewhat of a pain. You must use a mouse and click on a screen keyboard to enter your password.

I understand the purpose of this security process (it prevents hackers from gathering your password from what you type), but it’s not fool proof. There are reports of viruses that grab your entire screen session, and unlike Treasury Direct with the keyboard is random; the virtual keyboard is the standard ‘qwerty’ format. At minimum they need to grab your mouse x and y coordinates. For the utmost in security you should do your financial transactions in a dedicated virtual machine.

So while they are slightly more secure than some of the other discount brokers, the best type of security would be RSA based key fob like E*Trade offers.

Customer Service

Smart Money rated TradeKing #1 in customer service in 2010, and gave them a 5 out of 5 rating. For those who want to talk online, they offer an online chat option from 8 AM – 6 PM Monday through Friday. Every time I’ve contacted TradeKing’s customer service, they were quick to respond, and able to resolve my issue quickly.

Trading Tools

TradeKing has a wide range of tools available to long term investors and active traders. It has:

• Options Pricing Calculator
• Probability Calculator
• Profit + Loss Calculator
• Options and Strategy Scanners
• Stock, ETF + Mutual Fund Screeners
• Maxit Tax Manager
• Technical Analysis
• TradeKing LIVE

From 2008-2011 Barron’s rated TradeKing best for options traders. TradeKing has some of the lowest options pricing available.

TradeKing recently introduced TradeKing LIVE which is their new streaming platform. You can stay on top of the latest market changes, and your investments. It is completely browser-based so there is no software to download and install. TradeKing LIVE is only supported in the Safari, Google Chrome, Firefox 4+ web browsers. They unfortunately do not support Internet Explorer, which is odd since it’s still the most popular browser.

Unlike others TradeKing does not offer research reports, or access to Morningstar analysis. Though the rates are so cheap you can easily afford a membership to Morningstar Premium Membership .

Education

TradeKing’s education center is comprehensive. It covers all of the investments they offer: stocks, options, bonds, mutual funds and ETFs. They have an especially great options section named “The Options Playbook”. It’s not uncommon they have 3 to 4 live webinars every month on various investments subjects. This is a much different experience I’ve had with some of the other brokers. In a way it’s smart of them to do this, so you are using their trading platform more often. They also have a great YouTube channel educating customers about various option strategies.

Social Network Investing – Trader Network

Another aspect that makes them unique is their social network named “Trader Network”. This is what makes them different than other discount brokers. TradeKing has over 200,000 members in their network. It’s where investors can connect with one another, share experiences, ideas and strategies; see what others are trading and how they are performing. You can see what other investments are popular, and what other insights other investors can offer. For those interested, you can see my trades on TradeKing’s network.

Mobile Trading

TradeKing has two smartphone apps: Blackberry and iPhone. I previously discussed the iPhone app, and unfortunately no longer own a Blackberry to do an adequate review. They will soon be offering an iPad, and Android version in the near future.

If you don’t have any of these mobile devices, they do offer a simpler mobile edition of their web site. The mobile features are somewhat limited, but you have enough features to do basic trading. I suspect their iPad edition, similar to other discount brokers, will have more features.

TradeKing Summary

TradeKing has great pricing, great customer service, helpful online training, and adequate mobile integration. For a trader who needs low cost, and no hidden fees – TradeKing is hard to beat.