I’m really sick of all the “suggest a broker” post

[gurshwin]

I feel like half the posts on the sub are people asking for broker advice. Obviously without doing any research since the options in EU are limited and speak for themselves.
Can we either remove these low effort posts or refer to a Q&A section?

Edit: well this blew up. I agree that there should be a place to ask questions but i would also like to incentivise new traders to do their own research. An overview on this subreddit with basic info that allows users to make a decision seems like the way to go. Mods?

 

[ladybugjb]

@gurshwin There should be a sidebar post with this information. There can be a poll so that there's a good sample size of people from X country and the brokers they use vs Y county and the ones that work better for them.

 

[sheepdavid]

@ladybugjb I wholeheartedly agree. I am usually lurking, rather than actively contributing, but the amount of low-effort, repetitive posts is demoralizing.

 

[tekela]

@ladybugjb And we need a short pros and cons list with factual information everyone can agree with.

 

[feelinglost7896]

@gurshwin Proposal:

A table in the wiki page with various brokers with information about

• costs
• conditions
• customer region served (EU isn't Europe)
• Exchanges offered
• Securities offered (for example % of the stocks of an exchange)
• What makes this broker special

 

[hh316]

@feelinglost7896 Even a link to bokerchooser.com would probably suffice

 

[pisos]

@gurshwin I agree that there should be a sidebar, a Q&A or a FAQ.

However, I don't see that many posts about it. I counted 7 in the last 30 (sorted by new) and almost all of them are for very specific things, that could not be covered in a FAQ.

 

[boondocks777]

@gurshwin I can see why they are annoying, but that doesn't mean that all of them are low effort or not valid questions. It really depends on the requirements, location etc.

Having an faq/sticky post that covers most use cases would be nice, and whoever needs something that isn't covered by that can still ask but with enough information in their post for people to give a good recommendation and not the same standard answer.

I'm looking for a broker myself, and tbh it's really frustrating since I'm from Luxembourg. I've been doing a lot of research for the last 10 days and those million "what broker should I choose" posts are useless because they always come with the same answers, which are not available here, have high fees or have other issues. That's what's annoying me the most about these posts, they don't help me lol.

• Degiro, Trade Republic, Lynx and many others not available.
• Trading 212 rejected my ID card for registration and wants passport. Don't have one and not gonna request one now just for this. Also some shady stuff in their tos.
• Failed registration on scalable capital and many other German brokers because their stupid PostIdent verification is not able to verify Luxembourgish ID cards from before 2014, great.
• Luxembourg banks are expensive as fuck, mine wants min 50 euro per trade lol + transaction fees + yearly fee... Yeah no I pass lol
• Swissquote, Saxo Bank, Keytrade bank are better but still on the pricier side. Just want an etf savings plan
• IB always works I guess but inactivity fee and wants me to lie about my experience during registration... Not that desperate yet, seems more like a solution for 100k+ or active traders.

Just to give a small overview of what I've been through so far. Trying my luck right now with flatex. Took me 3 tries for the registration to pass. Waiting since a week with no response.

Yes this is fun... I can see why there are so many posts about it. At least if you're not from one of the major countries who have the mainstream brokers. Especially at the beginning, when you're new to the topic, getting an overview of the potential fees and other stuff is work

 

[amyzmom]

@boondocks777 Re: Swissquote, if I understand correctly, the fees are mostly high for those that plan on doing many trades? If one just plans on holding a couple of ETFs, it shouldn't be a problem?

 

[boondocks777]

@amyzmom Swissquote has an inactivity fee of 15€ per month. And each trade with etf is 0.1% with a minimum of 15 euro.

This is making it unattractive when you wanna start investing with small amounts.

I wanna start with 10k and then put 200 in 1-2 ETFs every month. Paying then 15 or 30 euro extra fees every month is just too much.

If you open a smartportfolio account and not a trading account it's much cheaper, but then you have no real control about what you're investing. In that case I can also just stick with the speedinvest of my bank (bcee), that's pretty much the same

 

[amyzmom]

@boondocks777 Thanks for the analysis. I'm getting mixed info about SQ inactivity fees. Some websites state there are no inactivity fees. Just to be sure: we're here talking about the Swiss SQ, right? (Not the Luxembourg one, ex-Internaxx)

 

[boondocks777]

@amyzmom Yes talking about swissquote.lu (internaxx got bought by sq, so they don't exist anymore I think).

They actually have 2 inactivity fees. The one I mentioned, they call maintenance fee... But for me that's the same. Then they have a second one on top of you don't trade for a year or so.

Check pricing under Stock/ETF, account maintenance and inactivity.

https://en.swissquote.lu/pricing/trading-account

Maybe the fees are different for other countries, idk.

 

[amyzmom]

@boondocks777 What about the Swiss SQ alternative? The fee structure is nicer, check it out.

 

[boondocks777]

@amyzmom I'm not sure what you mean with swiss sq alternative. sqbroker.ch? Can't even find the fees on their page.

If flatex would just proceed and accept, I'd be okay with that....seems good enough to me. 0-1.5 euro comissions + atc for etf, they have 0.1% deposit fee p.a. and -0.5% interest rate on the cash account, which is not so nice but in the end it's still much cheaper.

 

[amyzmom]

@boondocks777 I mean that there are two Swissquotes. One is:

https://en.swissquote.lu/

The other is

https://en.swissquote.com/?sq_country=AE

 

[jess1975]

@boondocks777 Damn I felt this comment because I'm exactly in the same situation here in Lux

 

[endspiel]

@gurshwin While we're at it, can we also remove the weekly "what happens if my broker goes bust" post? It's like people's reddit doesn't have a search bar and Google is blocked in their country.

 

[zjmcdon98]

@endspiel Agreed, that's an issue all over Reddit to be fair. As soon as a sub becomes popular, it gets flooded with the same lazy questions from people who it seems have never used a search bar in their life.

 

[silverbear]

@endspiel To be honest I asked this very question in this sub a couple of times and never got a completely satisfactory answer.

It took me various weeks of research on and off Reddit to find good explanations of all things that need to be considered.

 

[walkbyfaithnotbysight]

@gurshwin Issue is, mods don't add sidebar links, despite being asked. That we need these links is kind of obvious, and that we write same info in comments many times is kind of obvious. I am ready to add info to wiki, but this is really a waste if there are no links in the sidebar, and better moderation to remove those low-quality question posts.