Replies to post #5017 on Investor Help (NO Ihub questions)

[ottoman]

Honestly, I thought all brokers charged the $0.000119 FINRA TAF pass-through fee.

reference here-->> two fees that every broker charges (sell orders only) includes an SEC trading fee of $21.80 per $1,000,000 of principal and a FINRA Trading Activity Fee (TAF) of $.000119 per share. Investors can ignore these trading fees as they are the same for each regulated online brokerage and amount to no more than a few pennies per trade.

https://www.stockbrokers.com/guides/commissions-fees

(oh and BTW, I recently found out Etrade charges $0.005/SHARE for extended-hours trading). that itself makes it useless for me. too much competition out there for garbage like that.

I've been told that the $38 mandatory reorganization fee, is a standard fee, but that many (if not most) brokers either absorb it, or pass-through a portion of it (e.g. Scottrade charges $20).

If Etrade was absorbing your FINRA TAF fee on all sales, that's great.

TD Ameritrade charges $38 for mandatory reorganization fee, but if you trade frequently enough, you achieve "APEX" status (how impressive sounding! ;-) ) and they waive the fee.

I periodically check out online discount broker sites to compare fees etc.

https://www.brokerage-review.com/

but no amount of my researching policies, fees, etc online can tell me exactly what will happen. I have to open an account and play.

I tried shorting a "hard-to-borrow" ETF in Schwab....they want $50,000 in the account first.

TD Ameritrade wants $100k in account to short "hard to borrow"

nowhere in their online literature could I find these little facts

It depends on the kind of trading I'm doing, but I use Fidelity the most. low commish, No extra commission add-on fee for stocks < $1 etc. Fidelity (or really any National Financial Services-cleared brokers) allow instant credit to your account with which to buy stock. As soon as you click the transfer-funds button, you can buy stock. That's come in handy several times.

However, you can no longer buy many pinksheet stocks. Basically anything with a stop sign on otcmarkets.com is off limits. Not that long ago, I could buy greysheets no problem.