I remember my first trade like it was just yesterday. I had done research for two months and I had my heart in plunking in money into Dodge & Cox’s International Stock Fund. I was excited. Although I knew that past performance doesn’t guarantee future performance, I had asked the question in my previous post and was satisfied with the answers. All I needed to do was find a great brokerage firm. I decided to go with Fidelity, because they had the best research tools. I love graphs, charts, stats, and numbers. I love going over 10Ks and financial reports from companies. Fidelity seemed perfect. I made the jump and bought into the fund. What I hadn’t thought about were the fees. Fidelity charges you $75 for mutual funds out of their family of funds. I was already in the hole! A big chunk of change.

I’m now more confident in my research abilities and don’t really need all of Fidelity’s information. I can find most of what they offer on the internet or magazines. I’ve been hearing Zecco’s name a lot recently. What’s not to love? 10 free stock trades a day, up to 40 free trades a month, and $3.50 per trade after that. That’s amazing, because I only make a handful of buys a month and I don’t intend to sell for years. I’m not a love and leave them stock flipper. I was just about to sign up for an account until I read First Trading Experience with Zecco at The Sun’s Financial Diary. Here’s an except:

Overall, I wasn’t very impressed by their website and their trading interface, though the order was executed almost instantly (at least for this order) and it was indeed free. I feel that I can use some improvements of their website:

• I am bothered a lot by having to enter my account number every time when I do anything related to ACH.
• It took me 5 days to complete the first ACH transfer, that’s much longer than with other brokerages.
• A gain tracking tool will be convenient.