Would you please help me come up with definitive Very Best Stockbroker. It would certainly help us and newbies to investing/trading, looking for the best site and deal. Hopefully the stockbrokers themselves will realalise they have to provide the very best and competitive service if they are going to keep their customers. What are we looking for????
A) costs for buying and selling
B) ease of use of the internet site and phone service
C) ease of putting in and taking out money
D) how does the site record your dealings?? paper profit made/loss
E) how quickly and what kind of deal does your broker get from the MM's
F) how quickly is the money made from a sell deal put back into your account
G) any other charges ie quarterly, inactivity fee??
H) do you get real-time prices wanting to do a deal
I) when you have the price do you have a time delay to have time to weigh up the deal before proceeding?
J) what kind of service do you get from the team if there is a problem.
K) what do the brokers do with your dividends

Have i missed out important things??? Facts and figures would be much appreciated. Cheers in advance everyone.

THATS A NO then!!!

Hi I posted in the wrong threads earlier but got some replys so you might like to check the Traders thead in both here and the Trader's room
I am leaving Squaregain because of their cockups on my account and very poor response, also because they are merging with Selftrade who I left 2 years ago for the same reasons. I trade equities and Covered warrants, (and forex via Capital Spreads and BOM) I was going to go to Etrade, but in 10 days they have not reponded to my initial enquiries, thus not endearing them to me, though their comission is low and facilities seem good. (If they are all they claim.)

Can anyone please tell me of their experience of Etrade or recommend another (execution and data only) outfit?
Many thanks in advance

I also added the reasons for leaving Squaregain in more detail when asked:
The problem I had with both Squaregain and before that with SelfTrade was the inability to tell the difference between a credit and a debit, both of them plunged my bank account deep into the red way past my overdraft limit. Then they (Squaregain) argued about what amount it was and wrongly identified a cash transfer from my ISA to my dealing account as the item in question. Had I not insisted on talking to the head of dept they would have left me not only several hundred in the red at the bank but also would have inadvertantly nicked/lost several hundred of my money as well. To add to this they only admitted it to me when I rang them (on checking the money had arrived in my bank account, the reverse was the case the took it out instead) in spite of the fact they had known about a general credit/debit error on ALL transactions on a particular afternoon 4 days before! They would not say how it happened or if they had fixed the problem or what extra measures they had put in place to prevent it happening again. In the industry I used to work in they would be dead in the water!

More recently I had found that their spread on SG CWs is often greater than that quoted live by SG and sometimes 15-30 mins behind. Also that I could not deal online in the more recent warrant issues (a month ago). With warrants being geared the volatility in price means that the ability to trade within a few seconds is important, I dont have time to ring up.

The other issue I had with them last year was the inability to answer a question except with a standard answer from a list, they just pick a random key word in the question then send of a pre-typed paragraph.

I only trade in equities and have never experienced any problem with Selftrade, they merge with Squaregain next month and I'm told were moving to the squaregain platforms will advise any problems encountered.

I also have problems with trading ONLINE with Squaregain today...tried to sell only 1500 shares of JKX...but it wouldn't allow me...only allow 150 shares at a time...isn't this ludicrous? POOR service!
Can anybody please recommend me a better broker? Thanks!

the share centre www.share.com yes a bit more expensive, but very few problems when buying or selling.

hyleo that`s why I have stopped buying illiquid shares. You can`t sell the lot in a hurry. You can`t blame squaregain though, as it`s the nature of the stock.

I am with squaregain and did two sells and a buy today. All transactions were speedy

Never had a moments trouble with Squaregain.

Snip, why dont i dont have a problem buying illigid stocks with the share centre then?? must admit im not loaded but had few problems.

Buying them is easy. They will all sell them to you. Selling them in a hurry is very often difficult. I was caught a few times in the early days and it cost me too much. I usually try to ignore stocks that have jerky graphs unless I know I am going to hold for the long term

Wel I've had more information and more questions answered by SAGA within 1 day than anyone else. Being an old git had to have an advantage one day.
I'm still waiting for Squaregain to tell me what their exit fees are though
I have searched their site and cant find it at all. Maybe they will answer my message in another few days.

Anybody know of any brokers that will re-invest dividend payments for you at a small charge?

I take back everything I ever said about the SelfTrade platform, used to be great but new platform must have been designed by a computer nerd with no concept of information traders require on a day to day basis. Looking to give them the boot ASAP and would advise all others to stay well clear unless of course you have a BA in clicking and like to endlessly search for simple information that should be to hand on any trading platform.

Can anyone give information on brokers who routinely quote prices inside the spread?

Also, regarding FTSE100 companies, upto what value (s) is it possible to buy shares ONLINE with any given broker? Thanks.

"Can anyone give information on brokers who routinely quote prices inside the spread?"

Haven't traded in the last couple of months but I kicked Selftrade and iDealing into touch and moved all over to Barclay's about a year ago, usually get inside the spread on Fts 100
Companies.

Quantity also better then S/Trade and iDealing.

When you say "Quantity" Stan - just how much are we talking about?? For instance, could I readily trade, say, 50,000 online for a FTSE100 company ...and inside the spread????

Generally yes. Which is not to say every time.

I got sick and tired of the Selftrade's amounts going down and down, I asked around and Barclay's were one that I had not tried.

Took ages to change over but must say there platform does work relativly well and I don't regret going with Barclay's.

Thanks Stan. Will take a look at that one.

Anyone know an online broker where you get more than 15 seconds to decide on the trade???

HI Stan must agree(regarding BARCLAYS)ICHANGE OVER A couple a years ago NO PRODLEMS EVEN CAN GET MONEY OUT WHEN I WANT IT/////////

Would be interested to know if anyone can follow up on HP's post (see post 34) as I too would like to know if it's possible to get more than a 15 second trade time.
JJ.

Tried most of the Brokers over the years and 15 seconds has been standard.