TradeKing Reviews

Mark on December 29, 2008

• Rating

The first thing to draw your attention at Tradeking is the clear and very useable layout of the website, and along with this the commission pricing, which as quoted by them ‘Not a pricing structure, just a price’ – For all equity and option trades there is a commission of $4.95, plus a contract fee of $0.65 on each option trade, mutual funds have a low fee of 3%, and mutual funds with load incur no fee, and the unloaded fee is $14.95 for buy and sell.

The customer service aspect of the site is very easily found, and they offer an F&Q section, live chat and phone service between the hours of 8am and 6 pm EST time, and also an email service which they strive to respond to within 24 hours.

A wealth of information can be found under the quotes and research tab, as well as trading tools including calculators, scanners and screeners Other services offered on the site include a learning center, forums, blogs – including the CEO´s and Options guy´s content, along with charts and reports, making this a great place for the beginner through to the expert.

The site offers some great security features including firewalls and SSL security, and the username/password combination which becomes blocked upon a set number of failed login attempts. You also have the option to set an automated log off for idle use, which can be set from 15 through to 180 minutes.

OnlineBrokerReview on January 7, 2009

• Rating

Registration - C
Trading - A
Charts - B
Research Tools - B
Commissions and Fees (Pass/Fail) - Pass

TradeKing, is an ultra low cost online broker. Beyond the excellent trading fees, TradeKing has an awesome trading engine and very good charts and research. The only major drawback - the registration process could use some improvement. Still, I highly recommend TradeKing.

Jes on November 16, 2009

• Rating

TradeKing was the first discount broker I used, and I traded with them for over 2 years, but I abandoned ship this year and went to a much faster, less expensive broker. You might find it odd that I’m calling TradeKing’s commissions expensive, but compared to the broker I switched to, they are.

If you’re new to trading, a buy-and-hold investor, or a very casual trader who opens and closes positions only a few times a month, then TradeKing is not so bad.

They do have a decent collection of trading tools (mostly for options traders) as well as some helpful research and analysis sections on their site. But majority of these tools and information is accessible elsewhere on the web for free anyway.

There’s also a discussion forum on their site, but majority of the discussion on their boards was never too useful in my opinion. The status of your orders and daily trading activity is listed on their main page, along with your positions. It’s fairly basic and simple…pretty good for retail and novice investors who casually trade.

On the other hand, for those of you who trade frequently and are active traders throughout each week like me, TradeKing’s platform is terrible in my opinion.

Every vital trading screen is laid out on separate web pages. You really have to open up multiple web pages from TradeKing’s site at the same time if you’re planning on trying to make quick moves. To make a trade, you have to wait for a web page to load, fill out the fields, and then submit the trade.

You can keep clicking on a refresh button on the bottom of the order page to see a realtime bid and ask of the security you’re trading, but that’s about it. Then once the trade is placed, you have to wait for another page to load to see confirmation. Then you have to either go to an orders screen, or back to the main page to check on the status of your order.

It’s all on separate pages and becomes very annoying at times…instead of all being in one spot. But the fun doesn’t stop there. In the event that you want to cancel or edit a trade, there’s no quick 1-2-3 method for doing so from any particular page either.

You have to go to your order, and then wait for another web page to load and then make your changes. Their web-based charts are mediocre as well…you’re better off using Google’s charts in my opinion.

While it’s true that we live in the broadband era where loading pages takes mere seconds, but when you’re caught in the heat of the moment, the ability to edit and/or cancel your trades on TradeKing’s web based platform is far slower compared to other web based platforms from other brokers. And this has cost me money before…more than once.

I know it’s unfair to compare a web based platform to a streaming java based platform, but there are other brokers out there who also use web based platforms too, and they are far more efficient than what you get with TradeKing.

Speaking of streaming platforms, TradeKing does actually offer one for real time quotes, but you have to make 25 or more trades or more per month or they don’t allow you to access it. That’s pretty disappointing when real time quotes are basically free these days. But the thing that is truly disappointing about their streaming platform is that TradeKing doesn’t let you make trades straight off of the platform since it’s provided by a third party.

This means that while you can use the streaming platform for getting real time information, when you click buy or sell from the streaming platform, you are sent back TradeKing’s web site for making the actual trades. Again, for a lot of traders, this isn’t a big deal. But after 2 years of trading on TradeKing, it did become a big deal for me. I wasted a lot of time waiting for cancels and edits to go through while trying to catch the best price on positions I was trying to enter and exit, and missed them several times.

In fact, the final trade I made with TradeKing that caused me to give up on the broker, was one where I was trying to get myself into an options position right before the stock exploded at open, but since there was no way to quickly edit the quantity of contracts and price, I ended up getting into the trade at a significantly higher price than I could have, and only ended up making 30% on that trade instead of double my money.

That was the last straw for me. I don’t know…maybe it’s just because of the way my trading style evolved during this recession, but I completely gave up on not having a quick 1-2-3 trading platform.

One last thing. I believe the reason why most people switch or use TradeKing is because of their low price commissions. This was initially the reason why I chose them.

The $4.95 they charge for each stock trade is not bad, and neither is .65 cent per contract for options trading. That may sound pretty inexpensive, but the broker I moved to charges $2.95 for stock trades and a FLAT RATE of $9.95 for options trades, regardless of the number of contracts you buy or sell, which is a lot better than TradeKing’s .65 per contract rate, especially when you trade a large quantity of option contracts like I do.

If you’re really looking for the lowest commissions, Optionshouse beats TradeKing hands down, and their web based platform is much faster and more responsive. Trademonster is also a cheaper broker for options contracts, as they only charge .50 per contract, and their web platform streams every piece of information on the screen in real time as well.

jbowyer on February 27, 2010

• Rating

The online stock and options broker TradeKing (www.tradeking.com) is CORRUPT.

Problem #1

Effective August 28, 2008, the American Stock Exchange (AMEX) will suspend trading in the stock of PreMD Inc. (symbol: PME) and will initiate delisting proceedings.

Before the market opened on August 26, 2008, I had 1000 shares of PME in my joint account at TradeKing.

After the market opened, I tried to submit an online “buy” order on this joint account for 3000 more shares of PME with a limit price of $0.04. TradeKing displayed the following error message:

“For securities that are less than $2, we only accept online purchases of 5,000 shares or less. Please reduce the quantity of shares or call us at 1-877-495-5464 to place the order.”

Obviously, this error message is ridiculous because my order shows that I wanted to buy 3000 shares, which is less than 5,000.

I contacted TradeKing via the “Live Chat” service on their website. After I explained the problem to “Adam”, TradeKing’s representative, he replied:

Adam: Alright, you really shouldn’t be getting that message…..we’re working on getting that taken care of. In the meantime, you can give us a call and one of our brokers can help you with that.

At that point, I knew that TradeKing was pulling another dirty trick on me (see below for previous dirty tricks from TradeKing). I refuse to submit my orders by telephone; I did not open an account at an online brokerage company so I could place orders by telephone.

Clearly, somebody was trying to make it inconvenient for me to buy PME shares during the next-to-the-last day that PME stock would be listed on AMEX.

Idiots. They assumed that I would only submit a “buy” order for PME on the joint account where I already held 1000 shares of PME. However, I have a second account at TradeKing (an IRA account).

I submitted the same order on my IRA account, and TradeKing accepted it. In a short time, my order was executed, and I obtained the 3000 PME shares.

I tried the same order again on my joint account, and the error message still appeared.

The fact that the error message appeared only on my joint account, not on other TradeKing accounts, shows that TradeKing had specifically programmed their software to target me.

Problem #2

On or about May 1, 2008, after Labopharm Inc. (symbol: DDSS) reported its 2008 Q1 results, I tried to submit an online “sell” order for 3000 shares of Labopharm that I held in my IRA account. TradeKing displayed the following error message:

“We are no longer accepting orders online for this particular security. Please call us at 877-495-5464 to place this order.”

I later posted a blog on TradeKing’s Community, questioning the cause of this error message.

TradeKing CEO Don Montanaro stated in a comment to my blog that his firm has received an alert about Labopharm through “a common data-sharing project in which we participate, along with the SEC, FBI, and other regulators and law enforcement officials”. The alert, according to Montanaro, flags Labopharm shares “for suspected or confirmed manipulation”.

However, another member of the TradeKing Community commented, “Strange…placed test orders for DDSS with Ameritrade, ThinkOrSwim, Fidelity - no messages.”

Finally, I sent an email to Labopharm, describing TradeKing’s claim about manipulation of Labopharm stock. Labopharm responded:

This came to our attention a few weeks ago, we looked into it with the help of NASDAQ. We are not aware of any manipulation of our shares nor is NASDAQ. We also have not been informed of any investigation on behalf of any regulatory body related to the manipulation of our shares.

Regards,

Jason Hogan
Labopharm Investor Relations

Clearly, somebody was trying to make it inconvenient for me to trade Labopharm shares online at TradeKing.

Problem #3

When I first opened my accounts at TradeKing, somebody at TradeKing would make random changes to my postal address in TradeKing’s records.

Then, TradeKing would attempt to send a letter to me. The postal service would return the letter to TradeKing as “not deliverable”. In response, without notifying me, TradeKing would block my entire accounts until I complained.

Here’s an excerpt from the final email message that I received from TradeKing:

Dear Mr. Bowyer,

This email is in response to your recent message sent to our Service email inbox. Thank you for your patience in awaiting this response.

I reviewed the account and we have now updated the address based on your instructions below. It appears as though we had the address line transposed.

Thanks
Dave Dusseault

David Dusseault | Director, Brokerage Operations
Office – 877-495-5464
Fax 561-988-0131
5455 N. Federal Highway, Suite E, Boca Raton, FL 33487

Again, somebody was trying to inconvenience my online trading at TradeKing.

Who would want to inconvenience me?

Well, I previously worked for a “group” that is responsible for many international financial scandals. After I quit, the group was not happy, and they have been making problems for my family ever since.

Have I reported TradeKing to a regulator?

Yes, I submitted a complaint to the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA). If I am not satisfied with how they handle my complaint, I will post another message here.

If you have any questions or if you would like to receive an original copy of this comment that includes screen shots, please feel free to contact me by email.

Jeffrey W. Bowyer (an American citizen)
jbowyer@seznam.cz

jerz on February 27, 2010

• Rating

pre & post market trading originally had to be called in. I think that’s changed but still not available for all pre/post market hours. Check on that. Otherwise, they were good and offer one of the lowest fees. Nice trade executions (though not as good as TDA).

SS2007 on April 27, 2010

• Rating

A couple of little annoyances - I can’t link to Mint.com and am not a fan of the virtual keyboard. But overall I have to say that they’re my favorite broker (I’ve had several accouts over the years), taking cost and features into consideration. Bang for your buck, I’d say.