So economisto, you are a pro and you trade with Swissquote huh ?
Funny I also met independent managers who traded with CS and UBS and so on and they paid through the nose, well their end-clients that is.
Someone mentioned firms where serious investors do business, and it's not a case of you get what you pay for. You look for professionalism and if you are active you look for a professional platform with rates for professionals and that means rock bottom, that's it .
That said Swissquote appears to be OK for folks who manage a simple portfolio and never trade . I think they are good if you are a bond investor. For stocks, I wasn't sure if they offered a ticket fee or if it was a percentage of the trade value , percentage commissions are ripoffs. I just checked and it's a tier system and it's still extremely expensive. You just can't trade with that price structure or you are giving away money to the broker. I wouldn' t recommend IB to regular investor. But Boursorama is worth checking out as well for those.
About IB, is this easy to use ? Seems to have a very confusing interface with flashing black/red colors. I did manage to find my way around it, but it would be not easy to get used to.
I am considering them. Are you happy with your account ?
i tried to sign up with UBS (since i bank with them) but couldn't find a share trading service.
i remembered swissquote and applied online. got the application the next day.
the application was just posted.
whoever designed the application pack should be given an award. amazingly simple and easy - in fact, the best example of 'good service' i've seen in switzerland.
contrast to my postfinance application that i'm still sitting on after several months because i can't be arsed to muster the mental energy to tackle the application.
The point of online trading is that you don't phone them. I have traded with Swissquote and never had to phone them, even during setting up the account...
In general you are correct, but it does slightly depend on exactly what you want to trade... Some of the more complex securities are much better done over the phone with one of their traders.
I guess it depends on how you want to trade, either frequently/daily and therefore benefit from a monthly rate or low rate per trade. If you hold on a long term basis you might benefit from a higher trade cost but low management/maintenance cost. From personal experience I think that swissquote is ok, the usability isn't the best I've seen..but I've heard they have bank guarantee up to 100.000CHF.
I don't want to abuse the forum for publicity, but as this is directly related to why I moved to Switzerland, can I just add here that there is a new alternative to Swissquote now. We opened the Swiss office of Keytrade Bank (Crédit Agricole) about a year ago to provide more attractive conditions in the Swiss online brokerage market. The market had been very much dominated by one player here for a long time.
I'm not sure the moderators will necessarily agree with me, but I would certainly be happy for you to give us a quick summary of the differences between Swissquote and Keytrade.
I am currently looking for an online trading platfrom that will allow me to trade Euro Corporate Bonds. Swissquote allows this, but I was unimpressed with the service I received in the Zurich Lounge. I have used IB extensively in the past, but their platform (although the cheapest by far) does not offer Euro bonds. Further research led me to Saxobank ( http://www.saxobank.com/ ) and Keytrade Bank (http://www.keytradebank.ch/ ). My only concern is price and fees. I can check the prices against Bloomberg, so I know how much slippage (or theft) is occuring from the banks. My research shows me that Custody Fees are: Saxobank .03%/ann, Keytrade .08%/ann. Bond Commission: Saxobank .08%, Keytrade .20%. Custody fees are a joke in general, and are not charged by eother Swissquote, nor IB...(whatever happened to the days when the bank paid YOU to take your money, instead of charging to hold your securities and grab fees on both sides of the trade).
I am undecided yet on which way to go, but would appreciate ANY other suggestions for online/low fee eurobond platforms.
Just to clarify, Swissquote does charge a nominal custody fee (chf 100/ann/per postion), but this is irrelevent to the trade size. IB does not charge a Stamp Tax (which is relevent to the trade size) because they are based in UK.