Which online stock broker?

Mazeroth

I've been researching retirement for my wife and I (26, trying to get a big head start) and have decided I want to start investing in some indexes like the S&P 500. What I'm looking for is the best site to sign up with to purchase stocks. I'd like ease of use, good documentation for taxation and reasonable fees. I'll probably be depositing money every month into the account so something with a smaller fee may help me out a bit.

Also, I was wondering if any of you guys with some experience under your belt can give me some advice or suggestions with investing? We already have a few months' worth of pay in a savings account getting 5.3% and have read just investing in index funds yields, on average, 10% gains. I would like to put almost all my money into the stock market and keep what we have now in savings. I contribute 5% to my 401k at work and my company matches that 100%. I don't want to have to rely on my 401k for retirement and quite honestly, don't want to wait until we're 59.5 to retire. I'm shooting for something along the lines of 50-55 and am ready to drop one of our salaries completely into investments.

Thanks!

petrym

I use TD Ameritrade.

PolkThug

Here's your thread from last year: http://www.polkaudio.com/forums/showthread.php?t=44388

Mazeroth

PolkThug wrote: »

Here's your thread from last year: http://www.polkaudio.com/forums/showthread.php?t=44388

...and here's my foot up your *%#!!!!!

I totally forgot I posted that! My wife and I decided to pay off the car, credit cards and school loans first and then start investing. I wanted to put aside a few g's into a savings account and now feel ready to start investing.

Thanks for finding that, Thug. How in the hell did you remember that, or did you just do a search?

wallstreet

Setup an account with Vanguard. There, you can buy all of their index funds. I have their S&P500 fund which has been doing quite well lately, but you should go with the Total Market Index fund to get a more diversified portfolio. You could also look to spiders or ETF's to build a nice portfolio. You can also control your taxable events better.

PolkThug

Mazeroth wrote: »

Thanks for finding that, Thug. How in the hell did you remember that, or did you just do a search?

I have everyone's threads indexed since '03.

Sami

Mazeroth wrote: »

I contribute 5% to my 401k at work and my company matches that 100%.

Even if you want to retire early I would still put in more than 5%. I put 12% on my 401k because quite frankly the difference between 5% and 12% isn't that great when you look at your bi-weekly paycheck but it really does start to show on the 401k balance quickly. The 10% early withdrawal penalty, I think I have paid off my housing by then so I can live with less money so I will probably equal that one out in the income tax bracket.

I have three accounts currently aimed at retirement; my 401k, my old 401k converted into TD Ameritrade IRA and regular stock account (TD Ameritrade). The regular account is there to quickly turn that money around and do different types of investments like real estate. I converted my old 401k into stock IRA account because individual stocks yield better results if you do your research and invest carefully. Otherwise mutual funds are ok.

bobman1235

Even though I said it in the other thread, I will reiterate my distaste for E*Trade. I have ot use them for my employee stock purchase stuff, and have had a few problems - having problems isn't a big deal, it happens with the best companies, but E*Trade has been completely unreasonable in dealing with the problems, to the point of completely ignoring emails and being unreachable by phone for days at a time. While I'm sure my experience is uncommon, the fact that I've had it (twice in a row now) speaks volumes.

And despite my erratic persona on Club Polk, I'm actually a very reasonable guy.

POLKOHOLIC

i use td ameritrade. 10 bucks per trade i think. havent had any problems.

MacLeod

Good old Thuggy! He's like Club Polk's very own Snopes.com

jdhdiggs

TD Ameritrade has some specials going on for 100 free trades or something like that. For regular timely investments in small amounts, use sharebuilder. Also, get your research on (clearstation.com, fool.com, yahoo finance, etc...). With minimial effort on those sites you should figure out what level of risk you're willing to live with and crush the market/index returns.