# What Investing Brokers Does Everyone Use?



## thredge

So I haven't done any investing before in funds or markets, and currently trying to learn what I can. With all the people I see talking about their shares of TSLA, I was wondering what Brokers are being used, and any platforms or if some are still going the real person route.


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## Steve C

I use BMOIvestorline.

It's $9.95 per trade and have a few tiers with different benifits depending on the tier.

Not sure where you are locating though.


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## thredge

I'm in the US. Looks like BMO is a Canadian broker then?

I was considering TDAmeritrade. Seen both positive and negative, but the tools looked nice. Have since learned TD Bank is one of the lenders to the Dakota Access pipeline, so that is providing an additional consideration.


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## MelindaV

last year I started using Robinhood. All app based and 100% free trades, free adding funds and withdrawing funds without any minimums. (plus, they are 3 miles away from Tesla HQ in Palo Alto!)


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## Steve C

thredge said:


> I'm in the US. Looks like BMO is a Canadian broker then?
> 
> I was considering TDAmeritrade. Seen both positive and negative, but the tools looked nice. Have since learned TD Bank is one of the lenders to the Dakota Access pipeline, so that is providing an additional consideration.


Yes... BMO is Canadian. Excellent broker for us Canadians.  Sorry I don't know any in the US


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## Bobby Garrity

MelindaV said:


> last year I started using Robinhood. All app based and 100% free trades, free adding funds and withdrawing funds without any minimums. (plus, they are 3 miles away from Tesla HQ in Palo Alto!)


Oh my goodness Melinda. Why didn't you tell me about this sooner? The whole reason I don't buy stock is because the commission erodes all of the profits and then some.

I downloaded it and bought some stock! I can't believe how easy that was! Thank you so much!!!


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## BigBri

Steve C said:


> Yes... BMO is Canadian. Excellent broker for us Canadians.  Sorry I don't know any in the US


Pretty sure BMO has a US arm too. I use em too and now that I'm used to it wouldn't want to use anything else. They've been a pretty solid bank too.


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## MelindaV

Bobby Garrity said:


> Oh my goodness Melinda. Why didn't you tell me about this sooner? The whole reason I don't buy stock is because the commission erodes all of the profits and then some.
> 
> I downloaded it and bought some stock! I can't believe how easy that was! Thank you so much!!!


exactly! it doesn't make it silly to buy a single share each day of the week if you wanted.


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## AZ Desert Driver

I was going to endorse Fidelity. They are now 4.95 commission. I've been using their research tools and occasional chat with an Advisor and have been quite happy
But robinhood? Never heard about the till now. Thanks for that melendav!!


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## garsh

BTW, I strongly suggest that you only invest in stocks for fun. For actual retirement investments, follow this advice:

Make a will
Pay off your credit cards
Get term life insurance if you have a family to support
Fund your 401k to the maximum
Fund your IRA to the maximum
Buy a house if you want to live in a house and can afford it
Put six months worth of expenses in a money-market account
Take whatever money is left over and invest 70% in a stock index fund and 30% in a bond fund through any discount broker and never touch it until retirement
If any of this confuses you, or you have something special going on (retirement, college planning, tax issues), hire a fee-based financial planner, not one who charges a percentage of your portfolio
For part 8, open a Vanguard account, and put 70% in VTSAX and 30% in VBTLX. These two index funds have much, much lower expense ratios than anything else you can find.


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## teslaliving

My Model 3 fund is with Schwab and is just "play" money. Light market timing only on SolarCity (when it existed) and Tesla stock. It's done quite well. I don't trade much and don't need much help. Schwab is well known and works. There are other options that could save a few bucks but for the number of trades it didn't matter for me.

As @garsh said, defintely get yourself in order with the important things before goofing in the market or wasting money on things that don't last forever like cars.


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## MelindaV

MelindaV said:


> last year I started using Robinhood. All app based and 100% free trades, free adding funds and withdrawing funds without any minimums. (plus, they are 3 miles away from Tesla HQ in Palo Alto!)


Robinhood just started a new signup program that gives you a free share when you add funds to your account. Free stock is randomly selected with a value from $3 up to $150. Check it out if interested...


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## teslaliving

MelindaV said:


> Robinhood just started a new signup program that gives you a free share when you add funds to your account. Free stock is randomly selected with a value from $3 up to $150. Check it out if interested...


Just be aware that the free trading isn't free. They're selling your activity to machine learning algorithms to make automating trading engines smarter.


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## MelindaV

teslaliving said:


> Just be aware that the free trading isn't free. They're selling your activity to machine learning algorithms to make automating trading engines smarter.


EVERYTHING we do is used to train algorithms.


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## teslaliving

MelindaV said:


> EVERYTHING we do is used to train algorithms.


No doubt, just saying that that Robinhood is more openly about selling your actions.


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## bitmanEV

Here in the UK I'm using 'Freetrade'


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## SP's Tesla

Fidelity


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## Jay79

Vanguard, no fees for Trading and the lowest Expense Ratios in the business for Index Funds,ETF’s etc....


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## slacker775

Due to various HSAs, brokerages, 401ks etc, I have Vanguard, Fidelity and TD Waterhouse. I’d say Vanguard has the least ‘sexy’ app for trading detail and all of that, but it def has the lowest fees on everything. In fact, besides the admin expense baked into their ETFs, that’s the only money I’m really giving them.


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## bwilson4web

When I retired, my 401(k) was held by Vanguard. So it was fairly easy to transfer part of the 401(k) to a Vanguard brokerage account. Online trades are free and executed quickly. They also approved a margin account. Adding and withdraw of money to my bank account is delayed a couple of business days but not a problem.

I've been moving all of my bill payments to Amazon-Chase as this also gives Amazon points to buy "free" stuff. Then I pay off my credit cards each statement. If it looks like I might come up short, I have some cash in brokerage account to pay off the credit card.

Bob Wilson


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