Selecting a Broker

• Ameritrade
  Trades: All US Equities, including OTC and Pink Sheet stocks
  Commissions: $10.95 flat fee for limit orders Pros: One of the best, largest discount stock brokers. Offers free IRA accounts. Offers free ACH transfers.
• Freetrade - Ameritrade's free broker division
  Trades: All US Equities, including OTC and Pink Sheet stocks
  Commissions: $0.00 for first 20 trades/month, $1-$3 for trades after first 20/month.
  Pros: Run by Ameritrade, offers free ACH transfers.
  Cons: Everything is done electronically. There is no phone number to call (instead they have e-mail support), and statements are electronic. They do not offer IRA accounts.
• Interactive Brokers
  Trades: Listed (no OTC) US Equities, electronically traded futures, many international stocks and futures
  Commissions: $1.50 to $3.00 per side for futures, $0.01 per share for stocks, $0.005 for shares after 500.
  Pros: They offer both equity and future trading. They offer IRA accounts. They offer outgoing ACH withdrawals.
  Cons: There are many futures that they don't trade. Also even though they say you can trade the Dow Jones AIG Commodities Index, this is in fact only available to institutional investors. Incoming ACH deposits are not supported, you must fund using wire transfer or check. They do support outgoing ACH transfers, and are working on adding incoming ACH transfers. Notes: Their trading platform is a Java app and is close to what professional traders use, and is difficult to learn, but once you learn it is is much faster and easier to use.
• Efutures
  Trades: US futures, includes open outcry as well as electronic markets
  Commissions: $12.99 per side for futures, plus $1.50 per side for New York markets.
  Pros: Reasonable commissions, offer ACH transactions, free real time quotes with Ranweb program (you have to enter a parked order to see the quotes)
  Cons: Unfortunately they are unable to trade the DJ-AIG futures due to a clearing problem, as of October 28th. Roni Kaufman and Kurt Kramer at eFutures are working on the problem.
  They appear to be relatively unknown (as say compared to Lind-Waldock or Interactive Brokers). You can check out their record with the National Futures Association, they have a clean record with no complaints on file.
• Boom.com
  Trades: Hong Kong, Singapore, Australia, Japan, Korea, Taiwan, Shenzhen B, Shanghai B, Philippines, Thailand, Indonesia stocks. Also US stocks for non-US investors. US investors can invest in Asian markets only.
  Commissions: Approximately 0.18% to 0.5% - see site for details. The site mentions currency exchange fees, and a support representative told me that the currency exchange fee is between 0.05% and 0.09%. However I have noticed that the currency exchange fee appears to be higher - I seem to have paid 0.15% spread for a USD to HKD exchange and a 0.30% spread for a USD to JPY exchange.
  Pros: Great rates for an International broker. Trades directly on Asian markets.
  Cons: A bit harder to open an account there for US investors. You need to send them a copy of your passport or driver's license. Also since account is Hong Kong based, doesn't qualify for SIPC protection in the event of broker failure.
  Here's an interesting article on them: Pan-Asian online trading from Boom.com.
  Update - February 16th 2004 - I recently opened an account with Boom.com and placed two buy orders successfully, one on the Hong Kong Market and one on the Tokyo Stock Exchange. It took a few weeks to open the account, mostly in waiting for my application to arrive in Hong Kong, and waiting for the trading Key Code to be mailed back to me. I funded the account using a wire transfer to their HSBC US Bank, which went smoothly except I had to call them to get their ABA routing number (they only list the bank account number on their website). So far so good! Thanks to Samuel Chong of Los Angeles Chinese Learning Center for referring me to Boom.com!

Don Johnson used to have an excellent site with broker reviews. Unfortunately it has been taken down, but is available on the Internet Archive. He even ranked Discount Commodities Brokers.