Berkshire Hathaway Inc. Message Board
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NEED ADVICE;
I'm going to make my first real inverstment with
WEB this week. I have enough money now to purchase 1
share of A or 30 B. I will not need this money for
about 10 years. Does anyone have an opinion on which of
the shares is the more prudent buy? or, or in fact
does it not really matter which is bought? thanks in
advance . lanikai76-
I never claimed to be "rich", in fact, I've claimed the oppisite. My 5 shares of "A" might make things easier someday but I think "rich" is somewhere in the vicinity of a billion dollars.
Greg -
I bought my shares in 1992 & 1993. I used Schwab
Telebroker for a 10% discount off the normal $55 commission
(49.50).
I WISH I'd bought in 1990 when I was first "tipped"
off on BRK. The stock was 4000 per share and i just
didn't think there was ANY way it could be worth that
much, especially a company that owned a furniture store
and a shoe company. Instead of only having 5 shares
I'd have 20. So much for those who say it doesn't
much matter when you buy if you HOLD long
enough...
Greg -
I have an account with both Brown and Datek,
though so far I'ved used Datek just for free quotes. I
think Brown is much better. The bid/ask quotes I get
from Datek are often very different from quotes I get
from other services. For instance, on a $15 stock I
own I often see a spread of perhaps a dollar so I
check some other quote services and their spreads match
each other and are in a much tighter range. If you use
Datek for real time quotes I can understand why your
perception of real time quotes may not be very good. You may
want to try http://www.freerealtime.com for free
quotes. The site is busy sometimes but as reliable as any
free sites I've used which offer unlimited free
quotes.
And I have a regular and an IRA at Brown, neither of
which are required to make a minimum number of trades
per month. What I also like is the $5/$10 commissions
are available whether I place an order through the
internet or with a broker over the phone. I like Brown
better than any broker I've used before, and I've used
many. I've often wondered if Datek might offer better
executions with their use of an ECN, but their quotes so
often seem to be skewed and I hear complaints about
their customer service I don't want to take that risk. -
Hi Wizard,
I only wish you were right.... I'd
like to find a flaw in NAPART's posting,... if only to
feel better knowing that I am richer than he. :-) (I
am envious that he picked up BRK at less than half
of what I did)
But... To back up Gregs story,
Schwab's 29.95 commission was in force for quite a while
before the change in January. But you had to have an
E.Schwab account. If your account was SchwabOne or
anything similar, you paid something like $45 per trade.
>>I think brownco.com's $5 is the best out there.
<<
Yes! But it is only for market orders. You need to be
very careful with market orders. Real time quotes are
really not real time.... it is real time in relation to
the brokers computer system.... On heavy days,
sometimes it is delayed by several minutes.... sometimes
you get a quote that's 30 minutes old. MAKE SURE to
check the time with real time quotes. (I placed a
market order with Brk once, and it didn't fill for more
than 1 hour... and after it ran up more than $1000!)
Brownco.com charges $10 for limit orders. In which case you
might be better off with Datek. Also, Brown requires
min $$$ of $15k and a min # of trades/month. It's not
for everyone... -
You can buy/sell BRK shares online at Ameritrade for $8.
RMR -
I bought my 'B' shares right on-line, with Waterhouse....$12.00 Commision.
I believe you can buy the 'A' same way, same commision.
May the WEB be with you.
T.C. -
Good job with MCOM!!
Yeah... I got on the
bandwagon too... but the otherway! Good ole Paul decides he
wants to spend a few bucks on a wireless modem company
and the stock shoots up like a monkey on
Viagra!
So, I shorted the hell out of it... I had to call
Schwab because they gave me this pitch that they didn't
have any more shares to short... -
depends on broker. sometimes the coding is strange because of a and b shares. t.rowe price handles it, for instance, without talking to broker. but you have to know code.
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They had a little online service called E-schwab
back then...
Greg
PS: I sold one share
(IRA) last year for 44,000 to pursue what I thought was
going to be a winner (MCOM). MCOM went from 4 1/2 to 17
and I bailed. In the mean time BRK went from 44 to 52
and I got back in via the web. MCOM is back down to 8
or so, Paul Allen bought half the company, I got
lucky.
Greg -
call them (Schwab) on it. Tell them they need to stand by their service guarantee. What's the normal commission? $54.00
Greg - View More Messages
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