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Learning, Sharing, and Teaching => Investor Alley => Topic started by: Khan on December 07, 2013, 09:34:49 AM

Title: Thinking of switching to Sharebuilder from Ameritrade
Post by: Khan on December 07, 2013, 09:34:49 AM
Anybody have experience with the two sites? Sharebuilder costs less in every respect, including margin rates. Then there's the automatic investing...

So, thoughts on sharebuilder, anyone?
Title: Re: Thinking of switching to Sharebuilder from Ameritrade
Post by: Reepekg on December 07, 2013, 11:28:26 AM
Sharebuilder costs less in every respect, including margin rates. Then there's the automatic investing...

Not sure how you figure this. Ameritrade has ~100 commission free ETFs, which include all the indexes (S&P, total market, etc.) that many Mustachians prefer. So basically, I use the Ameritrade service completely free. Hard to beat that.

If you're buying individual stocks on margin or whatever, Sharebuilder might offer some savings. Their automatic investing/reinvesting also sounded interesting, but when I looked into it, I didn't like the fact that it sounded as though you cannot control when your transactions go through. As in, the difference can be days. I like to know with some certainty what trades will be priced at.
Title: Re: Thinking of switching to Sharebuilder from Ameritrade
Post by: wtjbatman on December 07, 2013, 02:01:26 PM
Sharebuilder costs less in every respect, including margin rates. Then there's the automatic investing...

Not sure how you figure this. Ameritrade has ~100 commission free ETFs, which include all the indexes (S&P, total market, etc.) that many Mustachians prefer. So basically, I use the Ameritrade service completely free. Hard to beat that.

If you're buying individual stocks on margin or whatever, Sharebuilder might offer some savings. Their automatic investing/reinvesting also sounded interesting, but when I looked into it, I didn't like the fact that it sounded as though you cannot control when your transactions go through. As in, the difference can be days. I like to know with some certainty what trades will be priced at.

I'm new to investing, and I've got my Roth IRA with TD Ameritrade, and my Taxable with Sharebuilder. I like the automatic investing aspect. I can simply pick the stocks I like, and as I deposit money, Sharebuilder invests in those stocks for me. And they invest whatever money you put in, you don't have to buy just whole shares. Meaning you can own partial shares of stocks. But you're right, Sharebuilder only invests my money once a week, on Tuesday. I don't get to pick the day either. That's a bummer, but as I'm using it for long term buy and hold of blue chip stocks, I'm not worried about day to day changes in share price. I can understand some people might not like it however.
Title: Re: Thinking of switching to Sharebuilder from Ameritrade
Post by: yahui168 on December 09, 2013, 07:20:27 PM
Make sure you enable the Comission Free ETF option in your TD Ameritrade profile. It's not enabled by default.
Title: Re: Thinking of switching to Sharebuilder from Ameritrade
Post by: wtjbatman on December 09, 2013, 08:24:31 PM
Make sure you enable the Comission Free ETF option in your TD Ameritrade profile. It's not enabled by default.

+1. Not sure why it's not enabled by default, but... there it is.