Does anyone here use a full service walk-in brokerage?

E

eagle488

I dont see commercials for any of them on television anymore. I dont see any of them when I drive around on the street.

Do full service brokerages even exist anymore? I know about "financial analysts" and the "investor".

By the way, the "investor" is merely a small time hedge fund it seems.
 
Do you know anyone that uses a full service brokerage where you walk in off the street?

The rage among the commoners seems to be the "investor". From what I can see, the "investor" is another name for a small time hedge fund.
 
Eagle - guess it depends on what you mean by full service, but they are there:
Merrill Lynch
Wachovia
Solomon Smith Barney
Morgan Stanley
AG Edwards
Edward Jones
Amerprise

And you have the 'independent' firms - LPL, Raymond James to name a couple.

As for advertising, most of these firms advertise quite a bit - maybe just not the channels you watch or magazines you read.
 
I use Merrill Lynch, mostly for fixed income trading, but with some DOTM covered calls here and there. I also use Charles Schwab, primarily because one of the fundmanagers to whom I allocated capital, "domiciles" his managed accounts there. Schwab is his Prime Broker as it were. Both ML and Schwab are walk-in bricks and mortar operations, and I've personally met "my broker" at each one.

Several of my buddies who prefer shorting equities rather than buying, insist that full service is the way to go if you're building a position > $1Meg. They feel FS brokers are able to borrow more stock, more readily, than the IB's and Waterhouse's and Tradestation Securities' of the world. They also say they get some great shorting ideas from FS brokers. FWIW.

However, 95+% of my round-trip trades are in futures rather than fixed income or equity, and for them I use three of the top 15 FCM's. Not IB or Alaron or Greenstreet or Velocity or PFG-Direct or XpressTrade.
 
Quote from horribilicus:

I use Merrill Lynch, mostly for fixed income trading, but with some DOTM covered calls here and there. I also use Charles Schwab, primarily because one of the fundmanagers to whom I allocated capital, "domiciles" his managed accounts there. Schwab is his Prime Broker as it were.

Several of my buddies who prefer shorting equities rather than buying, insist that full service is the way to go if you're building a position > $1Meg. They feel FS brokers are able to borrow more stock, more readily, than the IB's and Waterhouse's and Tradestation Securities' of the world. They also say they get some great shorting ideas from FS brokers. FWIW.

However, 95+% of my round-trip trades are in futures rather than fixed income or equity, and for them I use three of the top 15 FCM's. Not IB or Alaron or Greenstreet or Velocity.
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I'm not so sure you'll be able to get more stock via those brokers than IB as IB's short list is quite extensive and we have access to most of the major lenders. Whether you would consider using IB or not, make sure you check the stock loan/interest earned rates. The variance between brokers can be very wide and equate to a large chunk of change.
 
Yes and the FS brokers who are in fact a human being rather than a website / email address, are glad for you to come into the physical office and negotiate not only the loan rate for shorting but also the interest paid on the cash proceeds of the short, AND the restrictions (or lack thereof) on the use of that cash for other purposes, including loans. It turns out that having a dozen $Meg in the account, works more magic with people than with computers. Or so I am told by Big Shorts of my acquaintance. And don't discount the value of "good ideas" passed along by FS brokers made out of meat (rather than Silicon).
 
Interesting. I am of a different era then the full service brokerage people.

I imagine that you transact your business by calling the broker. Im very used to just submitting my order via internet.
 
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