Datek are a great online stock trader (for NASDAQ stocks), the web interface to your account shows the information clearly and the forms for buying and selling are clear and simple but also safe as there is plenty of checking to make sure you are doing what you want to do. Only problems are ... Read review
Advantages: cheap and quick + dollar cheque book Disadvantages: e-mail support, too easy to get credit
Datek are a great online stock trader (for NASDAQ stocks), the web interface to your account shows the information clearly and the forms for buying and selling are clear and simple but also safe as there is plenty of checking to make sure you are doing what you want to do. Only problems are that their e-mail support is ok, not great and of course to phone them is an international call so you won't want to do that often. E-mails are responded to quickly ... ...don't actually solve anything or give enough information. The other problem (or benefit) is they are very keen to let you use margin (an overdraft secured on the value of the stock you currently own) and this is dangerous in the current market conditions and additionally unless you really know what you are doing. Basically they'll happily lend you a lot of money without any real checks on you or anything, now this can be a good point or bad depending ... more
Datek are a great online stock trader (for NASDAQ stocks), the web interface to your account shows the information clearly and the forms for buying and selling are clear and simple but also safe as there is plenty of checking to make sure you are doing what you want to do. Only problems are that their e-mail support is ok, not great and of course to phone them is an international call so you won't want to do that often. E-mails are responded to quickly but typically American i.e very polite and nicey, nicey but don't actually solve anything or give enough information. The other problem (or benefit) is they are very keen to let you use margin (an overdraft secured on the value of the stock you currently own) and this is dangerous in the current market conditions and additionally unless you really know what you are doing. Basically they'll happily lend you a lot of money without any real checks on you or anything, now this can be a good point or bad depending on how confident you are :)
Other than that, they offer great service, you can write dollar cheques (or checks) that come out of your funds in the stock account (or on margin) and that can be usefull (your first cheque book is free). Execution is quick, and they charge only 9.99 (dollars) per trade which is very good.
So overall, great place for trading in US stocks but you have to do everything in dollars, but you have to be aware of what you are getting into if you accept their margin ability on the account.
