Investment brokage houses any good?

[uscuba2]

Anyone have accounts with anyone of the Investment brokage houses (Goldman Sach, Smith Barney, etc). What are your overall thought on them and services?

[Feelin'Blah]

I've never invested w a Brokerage house, but I've worked in one and unless you're going to be investing lots of $$ you'll have fees and little, if any service from your broker. Most of the better brokers I worked would only talk to their 10 biggest clients (and had hundreds). My suggestion, if you're investing a smaller amt of $, look into some of the smaller companies who will most likely give you better service for your money. I know that if you didn't have at least $50k invested you would have a bunch of fees because they don't want accounts that small. Course, you may find a newer broker that will be more willing to spend time w you, because he needs all the $ he can get. If you have decent $ to invest w them, go for it!! Good luck!

[SunDevil]

One of my co-workers uses Scottrade I think, but he does all of his own investing. He is in his late 40s and throws around 6 figure sums trying to have a stock go up a little bit and then sells it. What kind of investing are you looking to do stocks? commodities? bonds? foreign markets?

I am going to be looking into investing some of my money in the next few weeks as well.

[Bugsey34]

I am looking into this right now too, buying Suze Orman books and reading them over the weekend!! I am totally clueless with it and it's just bad.

Isn't there a way to do this online, skipping the broker?

[SunDevil]

Unless you pass the series 7 tests and become a stockbroker, I think you will have to go through a investment firm of some kind. Their fees and services differ from firm to firm, so it is a good idea just to call them up or look on-line what they will do for you.

I like the Suze Orman show, I actually saw her live giving a speech at my college. It is a good idea to have 6 months of cash in your bank account, get out of debt and invest in a 401k. But she takes a more conservative approach to investing. You have to determine what your finacial goals are first. My 401k and my company stock are my conservative investments. The rest of my money is going to go into high growth/risky stocks (some foreign) that seem promising.

Buy low, sell high. And don't second guess yourself, everyone would be rich if they knew the stock was going to go up 10% the day after they sold it.

[danw81]

From my experience with stocks for most people it takes about $3,000 that you can loss to be able to buy one stock holding effectively. Also with that little, you should do it at a Fidelity or Schwab who will likely charge you about $20 per trade or $40 roundtrip. For that you will at least get a phone number to call good website and good statements in the mail with cost basis. You could do an Etrade account but I am not sure what you get with that. For most people I think mutual funds are the best bet (but I am a little biased as I have my series 6 (mutual fund license) rather than the harder to get series 7.

[uscuba2]

One of my co-workers uses Scottrade I think, but he does all of his own investing. He is in his late 40s and throws around 6 figure sums trying to have a stock go up a little bit and then sells it. What kind of investing are you looking to do stocks? commodities? bonds? foreign markets?

I am going to be looking into investing some of my money in the next few weeks as well.

I guess I should have asked with who do you invest with? GS, SSB, Fidelity Merrill, etrade, etc.


I worked/interned at SSB pre 9/11 and it seemed that a lot 20 something's had accounts there but I guess that was something that their parents setup for them. So I got to wondering how common it was for the average joe, I guess.

As for the investing I'm looking into stocks and bonds, for the most part. Commodities, I took futures in college but I need to brush up on b/c it's a such high risk/reward area. At spme point, like to get into foreiign markets but the us $ is weak in alot of places, so that needs to change and I really do not know the basics.