Stock Market Watch-Learn Stock Market

As a wise investor, it is important for you to understand basics of stock market, its significance for you, how and when to buy and sell stocks, which stock brokers you should choose, and a lot more.  Learn about various types of stock brokers such as interactive stock brokers, discount stock brokers, full service stock firms etc. Go through regular stock market news to keep abreast of changes and developments of stock market today. Know about stock quotes, news, analysis, popular stock exchanges, best trading products, stock market update, stock reviews and much more.

Recent European Stock Market Report

As per the report conducted in October in 2008, world’s stock market accounted for around around $36.6 trillion, while the entire world derivative market had been estimated around $791 trillion. Rapidly recovering from the setback of economic slow-down in Europe, the European stock market is booming again, thus providing big platform for investors from various occupations. Currently, the the biggest stock market in the US is the New York Stock Exchange, while in Canadian market, it is the Toronto Stock Exchange. Read stock market news with us and learn where to invest your money for good returns.

The profitability in the stock markets depends on the rise and fall of prices of stocks. There is no surety of profits, as it is completely based on how the market behaves. For instance, when you buy stocks, you become shareholder, which means you own a part of the company. Now, if the company’s shares rise, your profit will also go up. On the other hand, if the stock of a firm goes down, you will suffer losses. If you are a beginner with no experience of trading, it is always better to seek the help of full service stock brokers, otherwise take the support of discount brokers who charge really low for trading services.  It is better to invest in long term stocks, if you want get most of the stock trading. A close stock market watch, stock trading tips, recent posts, user comments etc, will help to understand more about stocks.

The Stock Trading world is filled with specialized terms/keywords specially when looking at any stock analysis. This has been time and time again proved to be really frustrated to newbies. As its quite easy for a stock trading newbie to look for a certain stock analysis and he find an analysis that look as below:

“Stock XYZ has a trade volume of 2,000,000 share per day. It has EPS of 2 with P/E of 5 as of today market closing, & with its share price much lower than its book value it might be a great buy.”

After facing such a sentence a newbie stock trader might find the info of none sense, unless these stock Fundamental Analysis term has been explained some where on that site which is normally not the case. For that I have decided to come up with a list with the most used terms and publish it on here. Please leave your feedback and leave the ones I missed in the comments area.

EPS (Earning Per Share)

Earnings per share, or the company’s net income divided by the number of shares outstanding, boils the net income number down to the shareholder level.

P/E  (Price/Earning Ratio)

The price/earnings ratio – calculated by dividing the share price by EPS – can help indicate whether a stock’s price is high or low relative to its earnings. A company with a very high P/E ratio may be overvalued in many investors’ eyes.

Volume

The number of shares traded in a given session provides a snapshot of a stock’s liquidity. In general, the higher the daily volume, the less likely a stock will be subject to extreme volatility and wild price swings.

Net change

The change in price – in dollars – from the previous day’s close.

PEG Ratio

This is a modified P/E calculation that helps determine whether a high P/E may, in fact, not be such a bad thing by taking into account the company’s prospects for growth. PEG is probably more useful than P/E when looking at smaller companies.

P/S (Price to Sale)

Similar to P/E, price to sales is instead a revenue measure that divides the share price by sales per share. P/S can be more valuable than P/E when evaluating young companies that may be performing well, but have little to show in the way of earnings just yet.

Book value / share

The book value of the company (assets minus liabilities) divided by the number of shares outstanding.

Price to book

A helpful tool for weeding out stocks that may be considered undervalued or overvalued, price-to-book is calculated by dividing the current share price by the book value per share.

Debt and Debt/Equity

Is the company highly leveraged? Too much debt can put a company on a shaky foundation. These figures can help explain how much of a company is built upon both short- and long-term debt obligations.

Operating Margin

How efficiently is a company running? This calculation of operating income divided by total revenue can tell how well a particular company manages its fixed costs to deliver gross margin.

ROA (Return on Assets)

The Return on Assets figure – calculated by dividing net income by total assets – can tell an investor how much profit a company generated for each dollar of assets.

FCF (Free Cash Flow)

Does this company have the means to pursue new acquisitions or business ventures? It’s tough to grow and expand without a healthy free cash flow, which represents operating capital minus capital expenditures.

Short Ratio

A figure calculated by dividing short interest – that is, investors looking to sell – by the average daily volume in a stock. Many investors see a higher short ratio as a signal of an impending upward move, as short sellers may come in as buyers to cover their positions.

Net Income

A firm’s gross income minus expenses is the “bottom line” in any analysis. Quite simply, is the firm making money?

Return on Equity (ROE)

Dividing net income by book value, ROE helps determine how efficiently a company is using its assets to produce earnings.

Beta

A popular ratio used to gauge a stock’s price volatility in relation to the rest of the market. Investors with weak stomachs may not have the constitution to endure a high-beta stock.

Newbie investor, you might want to bookmark this page to come back to it for reference when reading a Stock Fundamental Analysis.

Bain Capital Ventures and Highland Capital Partners lead B round 

Waltham, MA, November 29, 2011 – VMTurbo, the leading provider of intelligent workload management software in virtualized environments, today announced that it has closed a $10 million B-round of funding, financed by returning investors Bain Capital Ventures and Highland Capital Partners. VMTurbo will use the funding to expand product development, customer support, sales and marketing.

VMTurbo is the only virtualization management solution to combine real-time operational performance metrics with unique analytics to drive a broad set of workload management actions that assure both application performance and most efficient use of virtualized and cloud environments.

“VMTurbo is emerging as the leader in automating the management of virtualized cloud infrastructures,” said Peter Bell, General Partner at Highland Capital Partners. “Both service providers and enterprises are embracing VMTurbo’s platform to realize the compelling ROI that cloud computing can provide.”

 “Customers are finding that VMTurbo’s unique solution is the only holistic means of managing all resources in virtualized environments,” said Ben Nye, Managing Director at Bain Capital. “These businesses depend on their Applications, and their applications depend on VMTurbo.”

Named by Gartner to its “Cool Vendors in Cloud Management, 2011” report, VMTurbo has gained significant, worldwide market traction since it was founded in 2009.  VMTurbo is enabling cloud service providers and enterprises – including British Telecom, Omnicare and L-3 Communications – to maximize the ROI of their virtualized infrastructure.

“Bain Capital Investments and Highland Capital Partners have been great partners.  We are pleased that they are investing in VMTurbo’s next growth wave,” said VMTurbo president and CEO Lou Shipley.

Well, this might be a good investment to look into if you are investing into Virtualization in particular or technology in General.

Related Links

Download a free 30 days trial here: http://www.vmturbo.com/vmturbo-management-suite-download/

About VMTurbo

VMTurbo delivers an Intelligent Workload Management solution for Cloud and virtualized environments.  VMTurbo uses an economic scheduling engine to dynamically adjust resource allocation to meet business goals.  Using VMTurbo our customers ensure that applications get the resources they need to operate reliably, while utilizing infrastructure and human resources in the most efficient way.

Contact:
Joan Geoghegan
joan@cavalier-communications.com
978-371-3921

TD Ameritrade Broker & OptionsXpress Broker are two of the top discount stock brokers in the US and around the globe. Choosing one or the other is quite challenging and will require you to do a lot of research. In fact, choosing between any two discount stock brokers are challenging due to all the factors you have to consider as well the amount of the info hidden from you & you will only find it out after using the discount stock broker itself. For that we have decided to gather as much info we can about all the popular stock brokers online and put them to the challenge head to head in an easy to read and compare so you can benefit right away. Ok, enough introduction and lets start comparing in here between TD Ameritrade vs OptionsXpress Broker.

Brokers Brief Reviews:

OptionsXpress Broker: has succeeded to be recognized as a world leaders in online stocks trading by many of the worlds business leaders such Barron’s, Forbes, Kiplinger’s and Smart Money. Both beginner and expert investors can benefits of their user-friendly service, a lot of educational trading training sessions not only for stocks trading, but options, mutual funds & even bonds.  Further, they make trading from everywhere an achievable task with the availability of their trading platform on most smart phones available in the market today including iPhone, Android and Windows Mobile Phones. Their rates are not the lowest or the highest in the market, but right in the middle. Actually one thing we really like about OptionsXpress that with their reasonable fees they still don’t compromise on quality of service. Further, they have kept their fees & commissions structure simple enough with no hidden fees that make could turn into a nightmare with other brokers.

TD Ameritrade Broker: is one of the older online brokers and they have been operating since 1975 with a powerful platform that give you access to over 13,000 mutual fund, stocks, bonds, Options, CDs(certificate of Deposit), as well other variety type of investments. Their platform offer most of the features that can satisfy both new investors as well seasoned investors. The big catch though with TD Ameritrade Broker is their fees that is higher than usual specially when ordering through their interactive voice response telephone cost $44.99 & ordering through broker assisted orders it cost you a hefty $34.99.

Offered Investments:

OptionsXpress Broker: as the name indicated when started in 2000 was focused on trading Options while offering a limited equities trades, though OptionsXpress Broker has grown dramatically since then and now it offer a large variety of investments including stocks,  bonds, mutual funds, and exchange–traded funds. OptionsXpress Broker still does not offer CDs(certificate of Deposit), unit investment trusts, mortgage-backed securities. For most investors OptionsXpress broker cover the investment types they are looking to trade.

TD Ameritrade Broker: We almost could not think of any investment or trading option that TD Ameritrade does not offer. You name it from stocks, options, mutual funds, exchange traded funds, various bonds, mortgage–backed securities (GNMAs), certificates of deposit (CDs) and unit investment trusts (UITs), Over the Counter Bulletin Board (OTCBB), pink sheet securities, as well fixed income investments including U.S. Treasury and Agency Issues. Further they offer all kind of different account options like IRAs(Individual Retirement Accounts), Roth IRAs for retirement, and Coverdell ESAs, custodial accounts and 529 plans for higher education which should give you enough of options to play with.

Brokers Commissions/Fees

OptionsXpress Broker:

• Minimum to open OptionXpress account: $0 for cash account, $2000 for margin account
  
• Stocks and ETFs: $9.95 if under 1001 shares; $0.01 per share if over 1000 shares
• Options (non-active traders): $14.95 for up to 10 contracts, $1.50/contract for over 10 contracts
• Options (active traders): $12.95 for up to 10 contracts, $1.25/contract for over 10 contracts
• Mutual Funds: $9.95 + load fee (for load mutual funds)
• Bonds: $5 / Bond – $9.95 Minimum
• Futures: 1-40 Contracts $6.99; 41-100 Contracts $5.99; 101-300 Contracts $4.99; 301-1,000 Contracts $3.99; 1,001 + Contracts $2.99
• Options on Futures: 1-40 Contracts $12.99; 41-100 Contracts $8.99; 101-300 Contracts $7.99; 301-1,000 Contracts $6.99; 1,001 + Contracts $5.99
• Covered Calls: $22.90 Up to 10 contracts
• Penny Options: 1-10 Contracts $4.95 Flat; 10 + $0.50/contract
• Spreads, Straddles & Combos: 2-10 Contracts – $12.95 Flat (active traders) $14.95 Flat (non-active traders); 10 + Contracts – $1.25/contract (active traders); $1.50/contract (non-active traders)

Although OptionsXpress Broker fees are not cheap when compared to other discounted stock brokers, they are quite fair for the type of service they offer. Actually for the type of service OptionsXpress offer their prices is quite reasonable and worth looking at as most other discounted brokers with lower or even similar fees usually compromise on the quality of their services, but not with OptionsXpress. OptionsXpress Broker actually offer the bigger guys server at the right price.

 TD Ameritrade Broker:

• Minimum to open TD Ameritrade account: $0 for cash account, $2,000 for margin account
• Stocks and ETFs: $9.99
• Stocks and ETFs broker assisted: $49.99
• Stocks and ETFs Interactive Voice Response (IVR) Telephone System: $34.99
• Options: $9.99 plus $0.75 per contract
• No-load mutual funds: $49.99
• Treasuries at auction: $25 flat fee
• All other bonds and CMOs, CDs: on a net yield basis
• Futures: $3.50 per contract (inclusive of exchange fees)
• Investment products: stocks, bonds, mutual funds, options, ETFs

TD Ameritrade broker is quite heavy on fees, specially if you utilize their Stocks and ETFs broker assisted trades or Stocks and ETFs interactive Voice Response (IVR) Telephone System to place a trade. Actually their fees for these two options in particular are ones of the highest in the market, so if you will be doing a lot of these you might want to consider look at a different discount stock broker.

 Customer/Support Service

OptionsXpress Broker: has a great friendly support by chat,phone, & email. We felt that OptionsXpress broker support is well educated and had the information we needed handy when ever we needed them. Actually we love their chat support & find it a distinguish features as only few discount stock brokers offer chat support today. Further they have 24 hours futures trades. OptionsXpress broker offers great trading training as well training that explain the features on their site & how to use its advance functionality. Nonetheless they have only 2 support centers, they have been always to offer a super-b support.

TD Ameritrade Broker: offer all type of support you expect for broker with similar fees. They offer e-mail, phone, as well live chat support from their over 200 offices around the US. Further they help & faqs pages are quite detailed and you will probably find the answers to your questions documented in there before you even ask. Their customer support is normally up to the task, but they seems to crack occasionally under heavy load, but it should be efficient for most investors

Brokers Platform Ease of Use

OptionsXpress Broker: Trading platform website is actually divided into clear cut sections, & each section has been give a separate tab which make it quite easy to navigate. Further, they offer a downloadable version of their platform called Xtend that has more extensive features that you don’t find on their website. We have liked Xtend for two reasons. It has been able to deliver a lot more functionality that trading websites usually could, & it has the look and feel as it would have been running totally on our local machine. Further, they have plenty of tutorials and training on how to trade using their trading platform website, as well about trading in general. We believe even new traders will be able to trade on OptionsXpress with ease and without any problem. They might not even have to go through many tutorials to do so, though we still recommend to go their educational tutorial as its loaded with valuable tips about trading. We believe OptionsXpress has done well in taking both seasoned traders as well new traders in mind when designing their trading website.

TD Ameritrade Broker: has a quite easy to use interface. The interface it self is well put up together and very well labeled so you almost can not get lost on there. Further, if you are in need for help at any time you will find right ahead of you with chat support button on every screen which get you to a support representative who can help you. Although TD Ameritrade has many advanced and sophisticated functionality it has mostly been implemented in one click actions that make it really easy. Further, the interface seemed lag free no matter what we do with it.

Brokers Trading Tools

OptionsXpress Broker: is known to have the widest range of trading tools including automation tools that will allow you to setup buying and selling rules & it will do the job for you even if you are not near your computer or not even following at that moment. Their automation tools make sure you never miss the chance to buy at the price you wanted even if it fall to it when you are away. As well they offer plenty tools and informative materials include calculators, charts, streaming news and analyst research report. Further, their interface is quite customizable and you can put your tools into the way you like to access them to ease your day to day trading. Further, one area OptionsXpress Broker excellent at is giving their users the ability to access their system from any where that you can access the internet as its compatible with almost every smart phone out there iPhone, Android, Windows Mobile phone!!

TD Ameritrade Broker: has one of the most comprehensive interfaces in the industry with many advanced & sophosticated functionality which can help you spot opportunities. Further, you can see market news & so on right from their interface. Further they could offers level II quote and streaming news for a fee if you require it. In addition, they have their trading tools for mobile users on all most smart phones(Android, iPhone, BlackBerry)

TD Ameritrade vs OptionsXpress: Comparison Summary

As far trading fees goes both OptionsXpress & TD Ameritrade has quite similar fees for ETFs & Stocks where TD Ameritrade high fees show up when using Stocks and ETFs broker assisted trades as well when using Stocks and ETFs Interactive Voice Response (IVR) Telephone System at $49.99 & 34.99 accordingly. The fees and the way TD Ameritrade operate is more suitable for Seasoned traders, but might not be best for beginners, which is a place where OptionsXpress excel.  Further OptionsXpress broker offers a free virtual trading where beginners can build their trading skills without putting any real money which is a quite impressive learning tool if you are new to stock. In addition, OptionsXpress are offering a $100 bonus as incentive to use their platform as well which even more encouraging for new traders. OptionsXpress provide a better customer service specially for the novice traders, though we can not complain about TD Ameritrade support which is quite good and sufficient(Though might be a bit sluggish under extensive load & when extended hours apply). Both of them offer great trading, research, & trading educational tools as well access from most smart phones available in the market today (iPhone, BlackBerry, & Android phones). At the end if you are a beginner then more likely you would be better of with OptionsXpress, but if you are a seasoned trader then you have to take a closer look at the plus and cons of each presented in this comparison and cut your decision accordingly.

Other Related Comparisons:

E-Trade Broker vs TD Ameritrade

E Trade Broker vs OptionsXpress

E-Trade Broker & TD Ameritrade are two of the top discount stock brokers in the US and around the globe. Choosing one or the other is quite challenging and will require you to do a lot of research. In fact, choosing between any two discount stock brokers are challenging due to all the factors you have to consider as well the amount of the info hidden from you & you will only find it out after using the discount stock broker itself. For that we have decided to gather as much info we can about all the popular stock brokers online and put them to the challenge head to head in an easy to read and compare so you can benefit right away. OK, enough introduction and lets start comparing in here between eTrade Broker & TD Ameritrade.

Brokers Brief Reviews:

TD Ameritrade Broker: is one of the older online brokers and they have been operating since 1975 with a powerful platform that give you access to over 13,000 mutual fund, stocks, bonds, Options, CDs(certificate of Deposit), as well other variety type of investments. Their platform offer most of the features that can satisfy both new investors as well seasoned investors. The big catch though with TD Ameritrade Broker is their fees that is higher than usual specially when ordering through their interactive voice response telephone cost $44.99 & ordering through broker assisted orders it cost you a hefty $34.99.

E-Trade Broker: is one of the oldest online discount stock brokers. Actually a lot of people call it the father of all online stock brokers, as it has played a big role in creating the market and the trust in Online stock trading. That can tell you that they have a very deep root, & as you know if they were not good enough they would not have survived this long in such a high competition market. Being the big guys, eTrade usually is more suitable for investors with larger trading budget. We seem them more suitable for people investing no less than $10,000 or even $15,000 is a better start with eTrade Stock Broker. If you wonder why we recommend eTrade broker only for investors with larger budget is that they charge $40 quarterly maintenance fee for balances less than $10,000 as well you really only get a reward on their better trading fees if you have $50,000 in investment assets or make more than 1,500 trades per quarter which is not something smaller investors can afford. Though if you are a seasoned heavy weight investor then you are probably already have an eTrade account.

Offered Investments:

TD Ameritrade Broker: We almost could not think of any investment or trading option that TD Ameritrade does not offer. You name it from stocks, options, mutual funds, exchange traded funds, various bonds, mortgage–backed securities (GNMAs), certificates of deposit (CDs) and unit investment trusts (UITs), Over the Counter Bulletin Board (OTCBB), pink sheet securities, as well fixed income investments including U.S. Treasury and Agency Issues. Further they offer all kind of different account options like IRAs(Individual Retirement Accounts), Roth IRAs for retirement, and Coverdell ESAs, custodial accounts and 529 plans for higher education which should give you enough of options to play with.

E-Trade Broker: Being the big guy, its very hard to not find the type of investment you want to trade offered by eTrade. eTrade offers stocks, bonds, mutual funds, fixed income investments, and exchange–traded funds. You can not run out of trading options when when going with E-Trade Broker.

Brokers Commissions/Fees

TD Ameritrade Broker:

• Minimum to open TD Ameritrade account: $0 for cash account, $2,000 for margin account
• Stocks and ETFs: $9.99
• Stocks and ETFs broker assisted: $49.99
• Stocks and ETFs Interactive Voice Response (IVR) Telephone System: $34.99
• Options: $9.99 plus $0.75 per contract
• No-load mutual funds: $49.99
• Treasuries at auction: $25 flat fee
• All other bonds and CMOs, CDs: on a net yield basis
• Futures: $3.50 per contract (inclusive of exchange fees)
• Investment products: stocks, bonds, mutual funds, options, ETFs

TD Ameritrade broker is quite heavy on fees, specially if you utilize their Stocks and ETFs broker assisted trades or Stocks and ETFs interactive Voice Response (IVR) Telephone System to place a trade. Actually their fees for these two options in particular are ones of the highest in the market, so if you will be doing a lot of these you might want to consider look at a different discount stock broker.

 E-Trade Broker:

• Minimum to open Etrade account: $1,000, though accounts that has less than 10,000 will be charge a maintenance fee of $40 per quarter.
  
• Stocks and ETFs: $9.99 if 0-149 trades per quarter; $7.99 if 150+ trades per quarter
• Options: $9.99 plus $0.75/contract if 0-149 trades per quarter; $7.99 plus $0.75/contract if 150+ trades per quarter
• Mutual Funds: $19.99
• Futures contracts: $2.99 per contract, per side + fees

While E-Trade Broker fees play well for seasoned investors who is active and has more than $10,000 into their E-Trade account, it play to be a bit expensive for beginners & occasional investors. Over all their pricing make up for all the services they offer and it might work for you if you don’t mind paying the extra fees for the extra services.

 Customer/Support Service

TD Ameritrade Broker: offer all type of support you expect for broker with similar fees. They offer e-mail, phone, as well live chat support from their over 200 offices around the US. Further they help & faqs pages are quite detailed and you will probably find the answers to your questions documented in there before you even ask. Their customer support is normally up to the task, but they seems to crack occasionally under heavy load, but it should be efficient for most investors

 E-Trade Broker: offers phone & email support with 24 hour securities phone line, but no live chat . Our experience with their support response was always up to our expectation from such a large stocks broker with over 20 support centers across the US with their main one being in California, though we believe they need to play the catch up with other brokers and start offering a live chat support as that make it much easier when you are trading on your computer and have a quick question.

Brokers Platform Ease of Use

TD Ameritrade Broker: has a quite easy to use interface. The interface it self is well put up together and very well labeled so you almost can not get lost on there. Further, if you are in need for help at any time you will find right ahead of you with chat support button on every screen which get you to a support representative who can help you. Although TD Ameritrade has many advanced and sophisticated functionality it has mostly been implemented in one click actions that make it really easy. Further, the interface seemed lag free no matter what we do with it.

E-Trade Broker: Our overall experience of the E-Trader Broker platform was pleasant. Its not too hard to navigate and quite easy to trade. Further, it has a step-by-step tutorial for almost every functionality they have in their trading platform. Further, they have many educational videos and articles that explain many of the trading terms that will be quite beneficial to beginners and even some time for seasoned traders who is trying something new. Although both beginners and seasoned investors should not have a problem using the E-Trade trading platform, we feel its a better fit for seasoned traders.

Brokers Trading Tools

TD Ameritrade Broker: has one of the most comprehensive interfaces in the industry with many advanced & sophosticated functionality which can help you spot opportunities. Further, you can see market news & so on right from their interface. Further they could offers level II quote and streaming news for a fee if you require it. In addition, they have their trading tools for mobile users on all most smart phones(Android, iPhone, BlackBerry)

E-Trade Broker: offer a great amount of automated trading features like bracketed trades, contingents, trailing stops, and hidden stops. Their interface is quite customizable with tons of tutorials & trading training tools. They have started to reach for the mobile users with releasing a trading tool for Blackberry users. Further they offer extra tools like calculators, retirement planning and a tax center.

E-trade vs TD Ameritrade: Comparison Summary

Both TD Ameritrade and E-trade are one of the best brokers in the US, but that does not come free of cost as their stock & ETF trades commissions are relatively high at $9.99 per trade. Not to forget E-trade maintenance fees for account maintaining less of $10,000 balance of $40 per quarter, on the other hand TD Ameritrade  does not have that maintenance fee but have a high $49.99 for Stocks & ETFS brokers assisted trades as well $34.99 for using the  Stocks and ETFs Interactive Voice Response (IVR) Telephone System. High fees make these two brokers are not best fit for beginners, but more focused on seasoned investors who can benefits of their lowers active trader fees as well not be subject to any balance maintenance fees. E-trade system and support does not suffer under extensive load or extended hours trading where TD Ameritrade has the tendency to have some sluggishness under those conditions. As far the trading & research tools TD Ameritrade seems to have more to offer on this front where we love their third-party research tools as well their free streaming quotes. We believe both E-Trade & TD Ameritrade can fit the needs of seasoned investors it will just depend on what they are trading and their preferences which system they go with.

Other Related Comparisons:

OptionsXpress Broker vs TD Ameritrade

E Trade Broker vs OptionsXpress

E-Trade Broker & OptionsXpress Broker are two of the top discount stock brokers in the US and around the globe. Choosing one or the other is quite challenging and will require you to do a lot of research. In fact, choosing between any two discount stock brokers are challenging due to all the factors you have to consider as well the amount of the info hidden from you & you will only find it out after using the discount stock broker itself. For that we have decided to gather as much info we can about all the popular stock brokers online and put them to the challenge head to head in an easy to read and compare so you can benefit right away. Ok, enough introduction and lets start comparing in here between eTrade Broker vs OptionsXpress Broker.

Brokers Brief Reviews:

OptionsXpress Broker: has succeeded to be recognized as a world leaders in online stocks trading by many of the worlds business leaders such Barron’s, Forbes, Kiplinger’s and Smart Money. Both beginner and expert investors can benefits of their user-friendly service, a lot of educational trading training sessions not only for stocks trading, but options, mutual funds & even bonds.  Further, they make trading from everywhere an achievable task with the availability of their trading platform on most smart phones available in the market today including iPhone, Android and Windows Mobile Phones. Their rates are not the lowest or the highest in the market, but right in the middle. Actually one thing we really like about OptionsXpress that with their reasonable fees they still don’t compromise on quality of service. Further, they have kept their fees & commissions structure simple enough with no hidden fees that make could turn into a nightmare with other brokers.

E-Trade Broker: is one of the oldest online discount stock brokers. Actually a lot of people call it the father of all online stock brokers, as it has played a big role in creating the market and the trust in Online stock trading. That can tell you that they have a very deep root, & as you know if they were not good enough they would not have survived this long in such a high competition market. Being the big guys, eTrade usually is more suitable for investors with larger trading budget. We seem them more suitable for people investing no less than $10,000 or even $15,000 is a better start with eTrade Stock Broker. If you wonder why we recommend eTrade broker only for investors with larger budget is that they charge $40 quarterly maintenance fee for balances less than $10,000 as well you really only get a reward on their better trading fees if you have $50,000 in investment assets or make more than 1,500 trades per quarter which is not something smaller investors can afford. Though if you are a seasoned heavy weight investor then you are probably already have an eTrade account.

Offered Investments:

OptionsXpress Broker: as the name indicated when started in 2000 was focused on trading Options while offering a limited equities trades, though OptionsXpress Broker has grown dramatically since then and now it offer a large variety of investments including stocks,  bonds, mutual funds, and exchange–traded funds. OptionsXpress Broker still does not offer CDs(certificate of Deposit), unit investment trusts, mortgage-backed securities. For most investors OptionsXpress broker cover the investment types they are looking to trade.

E-Trade Broker: Being the big guy, its very hard to not find the type of investment you want to trade offered by eTrade. eTrade offers stocks, bonds, mutual funds, fixed income investments, and exchange–traded funds. You can not run out of trading options when when going with E-Trade Broker.

Brokers Commissions/Fees

OptionsXpress Broker:

• Minimum to open OptionXpress account: $0 for cash account, $2000 for margin account
  
• Stocks and ETFs: $9.95 if under 1001 shares; $0.01 per share if over 1000 shares
• Options (non-active traders): $14.95 for up to 10 contracts, $1.50/contract for over 10 contracts
• Options (active traders): $12.95 for up to 10 contracts, $1.25/contract for over 10 contracts
• Mutual Funds: $9.95 + load fee (for load mutual funds)
• Bonds: $5 / Bond – $9.95 Minimum
• Futures: 1-40 Contracts $6.99; 41-100 Contracts $5.99; 101-300 Contracts $4.99; 301-1,000 Contracts $3.99; 1,001 + Contracts $2.99
• Options on Futures: 1-40 Contracts $12.99; 41-100 Contracts $8.99; 101-300 Contracts $7.99; 301-1,000 Contracts $6.99; 1,001 + Contracts $5.99
• Covered Calls: $22.90 Up to 10 contracts
• Penny Options: 1-10 Contracts $4.95 Flat; 10 + $0.50/contract
• Spreads, Straddles & Combos: 2-10 Contracts – $12.95 Flat (active traders) $14.95 Flat (non-active traders); 10 + Contracts – $1.25/contract (active traders); $1.50/contract (non-active traders)

Although OptionsXpress Broker fees are not cheap when compared to other discounted stock brokers, they are quite fair for the type of service they offer. Actually for the type of service OptionsXpress offer their prices is quite reasonable and worth looking at as most other discounted brokers with lower or even similar fees usually compromise on the quality of their services, but not with OptionsXpress. OptionsXpress Broker actually offer the bigger guys server at the right price.

 E-Trade Broker:

• Minimum to open Etrade account: $1,000, though accounts that has less than 10,000 will be charge a maintenance fee of $40 per quarter.
  
• Stocks and ETFs: $9.99 if 0-149 trades per quarter; $7.99 if 150+ trades per quarter
• Options: $9.99 plus $0.75/contract if 0-149 trades per quarter; $7.99 plus $0.75/contract if 150+ trades per quarter
• Mutual Funds: $19.99
• Futures contracts: $2.99 per contract, per side + fees

While E-Trade Broker fees play well for seasoned investors who is active and has more than $10,000 into their E-Trade account, it play to be a bit expensive for beginners & occasional investors. Over all their pricing make up for all the services they offer and it might work for you if you don’t mind paying the extra fees for the extra services.

 Customer/Support Service

OptionsXpress Broker: has a great friendly support by chat,phone, & email. We felt that OptionsXpress broker support is well educated and had the information we needed handy when ever we needed them. Actually we love their chat support & find it a distinguish features as only few discount stock brokers offer chat support today. Further they have 24 hours futures trades. OptionsXpress broker offers great trading training as well training that explain the features on their site & how to use its advance functionality. Nonetheless they have only 2 support centers, they have been always to offer a super-b support.

 E-Trade Broker: offers phone & email support with 24 hour securities phone line, but no live chat . Our experience with their support response was always up to our expectation from such a large stocks broker with over 20 support centers across the US with their main one being in California, though we believe they need to play the catch up with other brokers and start offering a live chat support as that make it much easier when you are trading on your computer and have a quick question.

Brokers Platform Ease of Use

OptionsXpress Broker: Trading platform website is actually divided into clear cut sections, & each section has been give a separate tab which make it quite easy to navigate. Further, they offer a downloadable version of their platform called Xtend that has more extensive features that you don’t find on their website. We have liked Xtend for two reasons. It has been able to deliver a lot more functionality that trading websites usually could, & it has the look and feel as it would have been running totally on our local machine. Further, they have plenty of tutorials and training on how to trade using their trading platform website, as well about trading in general. We believe even new traders will be able to trade on OptionsXpress with ease and without any problem. They might not even have to go through many tutorials to do so, though we still recommend to go their educational tutorial as its loaded with valuable tips about trading. We believe OptionsXpress has done well in taking both seasoned traders as well new traders in mind when designing their trading website.

E-Trade Broker: Our overall experience of the E-Trader Broker platform was pleasant. Its not too hard to navigate and quite easy to trade. Further, it has a step-by-step tutorial for almost every functionality they have in their trading platform. Further, they have many educational videos and articles that explain many of the trading terms that will be quite beneficial to beginners and even some time for seasoned traders who is trying something new. Although both beginners and seasoned investors should not have a problem using the E-Trade trading platform, we feel its a better fit for seasoned traders.

Brokers Trading Tools

OptionsXpress Broker: is known to have the widest range of trading tools including automation tools that will allow you to setup buying and selling rules & it will do the job for you even if you are not near your computer or not even following at that moment. Their automation tools make sure you never miss the chance to buy at the price you wanted even if it fall to it when you are away. As well they offer plenty tools and informative materials include calculators, charts, streaming news and analyst research report. Further, their interface is quite customizable and you can put your tools into the way you like to access them to ease your day to day trading. Further, one area OptionsXpress Broker excellent at is giving their users the ability to access their system from any where that you can access the internet as its compatible with almost every smart phone out there iPhone, Android, Windows Mobile phone!!

E-Trade Broker: offer a great amount of automated trading features like bracketed trades, contingents, trailing stops, and hidden stops. Their interface is quite customizable with tons of tutorials & trading training tools. They have started to reach for the mobile users with releasing a trading tool for Blackberry users. Further they offer extra tools like calculators, retirement planning and a tax center.

E-trade vs OptionsXpress: Comparison Summary

As far trading fees goes both OptionsXpress & E-trade has quite similar fees for ETFs & Stocks where E-Trade is a bitmore expensive when trading mutual funds. Further E-trade charge a $40 maintenance fee quarterly when ever the balance goes below $10,000 where OptionsXpress does not implement such a fee. Further, OptionsXpress are offering a $100 bonus as incentive to use their platform as well you have to put no down payment to open an account with OptionsXpress which is not the case with E-Trade. OptionsXpress and E-trade offer great trading, research, & trading educational tools. Further OptionsXpress broker offers a free virtual trading where beginners can build their trading skills without putting any real money which is a quite impressive learning tool if you are new to stock. OptionsXpress provide a better customer service specially for the novice traders, though we can not complain about E-trade support which is quite good and sufficient. Mobile Access is another area where OptionsXpress beats E-trade as they offer their platform on almost every smart phone in the market today from iPhone, Android Phone, Windows Phone where E-trade only offer their platform for BlackBerry users. At last, if you are a beginner then we believe OptionsXpress is our recommendation to you, but if you are a seasoned trader you might be in a good shape with either depending on what you looking for.

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