Anyone use www.Sharebuilder.com

masraum · 10-22-2007, 06:02 AM

Does anyone know anything about it good or bad. I'm not looking to do lots of trading. I'm looking at it more as a savings and investment thing, and I'm just looking for general info.

I've found a little bit of good info online, and a couple of folks complaining about trade costs, but I don't think it's really designed as a trading site.

motion · 10-22-2007, 06:15 AM

Steve,

I've been using sharebuilder for the past few years in exactly the manner you are considering. Join through Costco.com if you are a costco member. If not, then you should consider joining costco. Its $12 per month, and you get 4 free trades each month (if I remember correctly). They have a slick online tool which allows you to schedule automatic monthly deposits into your account from your checking account, then the system will buy your designated shares each month. Very slick and a great way to build a portfolio "hands off". I would highly recommend it.

masraum · 10-22-2007, 01:46 PM

Motion, thanks. I've found pretty much all positives online. I think this is a good idea, now I just need to convince the wife to let me start throwing some money at it.

MysticLlama · 10-22-2007, 02:32 PM

I've had a couple accounts there for quite some time, and a friend of mine is one of their marketing guys.

A few things that aren't always pointed out, but are there:

You can have a basic plan at $0 per month, each buy you do is $4.

If you upgrade an account to a standard plan at $12/mo. you get six free buys (so $2 ea., and $2 additonals). You also get the gain/loss tracker and stock reports.

If you have a standard account at $12/mo. and also open a Roth IRA, the $25 yearly fee on the IRA is waived, but you can't share free trades between the accounts, they are one or the other.

They have a new auto-plan that's kinda cool. You can set a buy threshold to keep your fees down if you're not on a plan. For instance, paying $4 every time you invest $100 is silly, as that's a 4% premium, but if you do it on $400 you're only paying 1%. You can set your plan to create an buy order whenever your money market account gets to $x. This way you can kick in $50-100 here and there and when you have enough it buys into whatever you have it scheduled for, like a mutual fund ETF.

You can do stop-loss orders, which is handy for set-and forget. They aren't trailing though, so you have to keep up on them if you want to keep them current.

Automatic dividend reinvestment is free.

The bad sides:
The sell orders are somewhat expensive (not a big deal if you don't do it often)
You only get the $4/2 buy price when you do scheduled Tuesday orders, you can't just do it whenever without paying the real-time price
You can't get shares of companies that don't have high enough volume, (Porsche for instance is unavailable)

That's about it though.

Works great for me.

masraum · 10-22-2007, 06:20 PM

Rob, lots of really great info, thx. I'd perused the site and talked to my buddy and didn't know much of the info that you posted. I'll let him know as well. Thanks tons.

slakjaw · 10-23-2007, 12:20 AM

I use it
I am on the zero monthly plan as I only have one investment per month with them. I dig it, you just set it up and forget about it. I have it set up to put money into spdr or some such fund every month. Check it in a year and it was a nice surprise.

masraum · 05:51 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by MysticLlama

They have a new auto-plan that's kinda cool. You can set a buy threshold to keep your fees down if you're not on a plan. For instance, paying $4 every time you invest $100 is silly, as that's a 4% premium, but if you do it on $400 you're only paying 1%. You can set your plan to create an buy order whenever your money market account gets to $x. This way you can kick in $50-100 here and there and when you have enough it buys into whatever you have it scheduled for, like a mutual fund ETF.

I've got a question on this. -- nevermind. I didn't initially catch the "if you're not on a plan" phrase.

So the threshold is good if you're on the free monthly no-plan, but if you're on the $12 a month, then just go ahead and buy monthly.

Thanks, that's all good info.

MysticLlama · 10-23-2007, 06:43 AM

Right, I do a bunch of small buys that maybe % wise are a bad move for fees if you call them $2, but I pay the $12 for the tools that come with the account that I'd like to have anyway, so I don't factor it in. I also don't go past those 6 either though unless I'm buying a lot for some reason.

On my Roth, instead of cost-dollar averaging, I just put in $50-100 at a time, and once I get to $1000 I pay the $4 and buy something I plan on holding for 5+ years.

KFC911 · 08:05 AM

Althogh I've never used sharebuilder, I think the concept is a great strategy for building equity. Another option (that I used extensively many years ago) is directly investing into companies that offer DRIPs (Dividend Reinvestment Plans), with low ($1-2 per order) fees. Either way, imo the key is to embark upon a systematic approach that one can set up and forget about for a few years while building equity.