Wellstrade (Wells Fargo brokerage) Review 2012
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Wellstrade Trading Commissions
- $19.95 per stock/etf trade
- Options: $9.95 plus $1/contract
- Mutual funds: $35
- Auction of Treasury Bills, Notes and Bonds: $50/transaction
Wellstrade Important Fees and Surcharges
- Extended hours surcharge: $0
- Large order surcharge: $0.015/share on each share above 1,000
- Penny stocks surcharge: $34.95 or 3.5% of principal - whichever is greater
- Options Exercises and Assignments: $45
- Account maintenance fee: $60/year
- IRA setup fee: $0
- IRA annual Fee: $30
Wellstrade Pros
- Full range of banking services through Wells Fargo bank
- Minimum to open: $1,000
Wellstrade Cons
- Highest commissions on stocks and ETFs
- Annual account maintenance fee: $60
- $34.95 or 3.5% of principal (whichever is geater) penny stock commission
- Buggy trading tools
- Few educational materials
- IRA annual fee: $30
- $0.0015/share surcharge on each share above 1,000
Wellstrade Account Types
- Individual
- Joint
- Traditional IRA
- Roth IRA
- Rollover IRA
- Inherited IRA
- SEP IRA
Wellstrade (Wells Fargo brokerage) Review
Wellstrade has some of the highest commissions on equities, exchange traded funds and mutual funds: $19.95 per trade for
stocks and etfs and $35 for mutual funds. In addition, the firm charges the greater of $34.95 or 3.5% of principal on stocks
below $1 and $0.0015 per share surcharge on each share above 1,000. Minimum to open cash account is reasonable $1,000.
Wellstrade is a brokerage division of a Wells Fargo bank and investors could take advantage of full range of banking services
offered through this institution. Actually, Wellstrade is "somewhat modified" brokerage services of Wachovia Bank, that was purchased by
Wells Fargo during the crisis. The company rushed this transition and, as a result, it did not go smoothly - there many bugs and technical
issues with Wellstrade trading tools. Wellstrade's trading tools are not well designed, lack many features which are standard in the
industry and order executions needs improvement. Customer service at the company is hard to reach - when we emailed them asking for
information, we got automatic reply but no response came to our question.
Wellstrade is one of the last brokerage companies that charges annual account maintenance fee ($60), which will get them few fans
among investors.
Becuase of high commissions, surcharges, annual fee and terrible trading tools and customer service, we can't recommend Wells Fargo
brokerage - there are much better online brokerage companies for anyone willing to do a little research.
We also suggest avoiding Merrill Edge (Merrill Edge Review),
Vanguard (Vanguard Review) and
Speedtrader (Speedtrader Review).
Wellstrade Promotional Code
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