Hoodless Brennan Stockbrokers

searlea

Hatone wrote: »

If you consider yourself a day-trader (a person who knows a thing or two about the stockmarket), why the hell would you pick Hoodless Brennan in the first place?

Everyone's got to start somewhere... or is it unusual to progress from occasional to regular to day-trader? (I'd have thought it was quite common myself.)

I chose Hoodless because of this site - I was looking for cheaper commissions so I could take get in and out of stocks on smaller price movements - not necessarily day-trading.

After noticing the difference between highs and lows and opening and closing prices, I started trading more regularly, and even subscribed to ADVFN for live prices.

Hatone wrote: »

HB is great for those who like to hold stock and invest in the long term (mainly for a dividend) - maybe trades 5 - 10 stocks a month. HB, IIRC, don't charge a management fee.

I guess you could go further and says it's fine for people trading stable stocks. If you're happy checking your portfolio value in the evenings and weekends instead of twice a day, I'm sure it's just about perfect.

When I found the original recommendation for Hoodless Brennan on this site it said something about trades being £6.50 or so. You actually have to pay £8 per trade and then get reimbursed the £1.50 difference if you go over 30 trades a quarter.

No-cost maintenance is very appealing though (that used to bug me with the old crest-nominee fee for my previous broker.)

Hatone wrote: »

Brokers listed under the LSE, whoalso give you access to in-house live stock market screens are only suitable for day-trading - most of which charge you a subscription or quarterly fee.

Any chance of a quick run-down on what you think a beginner day-trader should be looking for?

tradetime

uk_steve wrote: »

yeah i agree i am for ever getting error messages online plus am on the phone alot and miss some good deals due to the run up of events

however i am happy with my trades to date which i have done, i have selftrade and Hoodless Brennan accounts

may i ask where is a good place to trade on day to day basis because i prefer to have an account for that purpose aswell

At the end of the day a brokerage firm is a tool, to enable you to buy and sell stocks from and to the market when you want to or need to, it would be wrong for me to tell anyone carte blanch which broker they should use since different people have different needs and objectives and thus dependent on those, various "tools" will be suitable,

My original comment was in response to a comment on the suitability of various brokers for "daytrading" Daytrading as you know is simply buying and selling a security during the course of one market session, however doing this once in a while as circumstances arise does not make someone a "daytrader" a daytrader sets out with the explicit objective of doing this on a consistent and regular basis. I make the distinction because for someone doing it on a casual ad-hoc basis it is probably not worth trying to setup an account with another broker. However for someone who fancies themselves as a daytrader then you need live streaming quotes Level 1 and preferably Level 2, direct market access, and /or software based smart order routing. The leading retail brokerage imho is Interactive Brokers, another possibility, though I don't know much about them is E*Trade.
You can download a demo platform from Interactive brokers to get some idea of how their system works.
Personally I would think very carefully before pursuing daytrading as a serious activity, it is very much a dog eat dog activity, as a zero sum game in virtually its truest form you only make money by taking it off someone else.

uk_steve

I think i better learn to walk before i run and then trying to do the polevault in a few weeks.
Also after reading on the net,
it seems a very skillfull task which IMO im NOT ready at this stage.

I stick to what i am doing on Seftrade and HB

Thanks for the reply Tradetime;)

tradetime

uk_steve wrote: »

I think i better learn to walk before i run and then trying to do the polevault in a few weeks.
Also after reading on the net,
it seems a very skillfull task which IMO im NOT ready at this stage.

I stick to what i am doing on Seftrade and HB

Thanks for the reply Tradetime;)

Very sensible view, the market will always be here (if it isn't, the world as we know it will have changed) and will always present great opportunity to the short term trader there is no need to rush