OptionsHouse New Commission Structure: Still $2.95 for Stock Trades
I’ve been a bit distracted lately, and was a surprised when I got this e-mail this morning about my new OptionsHouse brokerage account:
Our new pricing structure is now active, so please log in and choose your new rate. If you have multiple accounts, you will need to select the rate for each account individually.
If you do not choose a new rate by 4:30 pm CT on December 15, 2009, your account will automatically default to the $8.50 +.15/contract rate.
$8.50 per trade? I didn’t just open an account with them for that! I went to quickly see what was happening. It turns out they are changing the pricing structure for their options trades. Stock trades are still $2.95. Here are the two options choices:
They used to offer options for $9.95 flat, up to 4,000 contracts in a single order. This must be a disappointment for high-volume options traders. As for me, I’m just there for the $2.95 stock trades. From their FAQ:
A general rule of thumb is that our “up to 5 for $5″ plan is most suitable for our customers who trade 10 or fewer contracts per trade while our “$8.50+” plan works better for customers who trade 10 or more contracts per trade. Both plans offer the same flat rate of $2.95 for stock trades. (plus $0.005 per share if the stock price is $2.00 or less and the stock is not options eligible).
By Jonathan Ping | Investing | 12/14/09, 11:59am
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December 14th, 2009 at 5:57 pm
Yeah most of the lowest cost online stock brokerages are a bait and switch scheme.. Zecco used to offer 40 free trades/month, then dropped it to 10 free trades/month and now still offers 10 free trades/month but only if you have over $25K in your portfolio OR make over a certain number of trades/month….
April 16th, 2011 at 6:49 pm
On Wednesday April 13th all day, iShares SLV placed a $78 “escrow fee” on my account. Options House explained there was a discrepancy with my SSN on my application SLV was looking at, and that I wired below the $1000 “minimum” to my account.
I suspect SLV used my $78 Wednesday to make a call on SLV against me. Anyway, it’ll be a while before I risk $300 on options again.
It is certain that there were more purchases than sales the day before, when SLV sustained a major drop I gained on.
http://satellite.tmcnet.com/ne.....442076.htm
Add to that the questionable status of the physical silver in SLV, and you have an asset that shouldn’t share silver’s price.
My put was right on; the timing wasn’t. SLV seems to be in at least some intermittent control of THAT timing.
J. R.