How to be a Successful Investor

Savings Account

What I am looking for is an account where I can put my rainy day fund. I want to see the highest possible interest rate, 0% risk, and absolutely positively no fees. My solution. Ok I have 3. There are three big guys in the market that meet these criteria ING Direct, Ally and President’s Choice. When you get right down to it they all are essentially offering the same service the only difference between them is the interest rate. Currently Ally is offering a 2% savings rate whereas the others are coming in at 1.5%. I hold an account with each as rates can change with the drop of a hat.

Checking Account

I had a TD Checking account for years. It required a minimum balance and offers 0% interest- Thanks TD. The solution. ING’s Thrive account. While the interest rate is sure nothing to write home about their is no minimum balance required and really a check is a check so who cares? They also allow you to use bank machines on the exchange network so really what else do I need.

Investing

Again I started out using the banks and paying a $20 trading commission. When you are dealing with smaller transactions it is amazing how fast your profits get swallowed up buying and selling stock. I’ve since moved across to questrade where the fees are less than half and with the regular promotions it is pretty easy to have an account that gets several dozen trades for free a year. Oh and I love their web help desk where any questions can be resolved by chatting with a service rep. Way better than going into a bank or trying to call.

So there you have it. Here are some easy ways to keep hold of your money so you have more to invest.

2 responses to “Successful Investing”

sww March 17th, 2011 at 13:02

I do not like fees. I been using interactivebrokers.com for the past couple years, they charge about 1.25 per 100 shares or 1 option contract but they do charge $10 monthly fee (waived if you raked up $30 for commission). If you trade option Questrade it will be really expensive it’s about $11 if you buy 1 contract, and same price to close it.

Personally I think it’s pretty easy to make $120 a year to cover the expenses if you say put 2000 into a low risk high probability trade like ‘bull put spread’ to make a 5% return.

IB let u trade almost anything you named it, stock, bond, futures, SSF, do things like “combo order” – buy and sell something together, say buy-write covered call, cash secure put option, option spread, ratio spread in one order. Well, sounds like free advertisement for them but I think IB is cheapest brokers I found, no harm check it out yourself. By the way, no online brokerage firm website dare to compare with IB.

Cheers, happy investing!