Free Republic

Multiple brokerages, including Charles Schwab, Fidelity, Vanguard, TD Ameritrade, E-Trade, UPS, CenturyLink, and Interactive Brokers, are currently down and reporting errors amid market crashes.

The race to the zero-bound is on. That’s not an interest-rate policy development, but an investing fee trend. Charles Schwab Corp SCHW, -2.41% on Tuesday said it would no longer charge a commission on trades of U.S. and Canada-listed stocks, exchange-traded funds, and options, starting October 7. That’s just the latest volley in the incredible shrinking broker fee war. Behemoth asset managers like Vanguard, Fidelity and Schwab have spent the past few years leapfrogging each other to offer lower and lower commissions. That’s thanks in part to the rise in popularity of ETFs, funds that in most cases passively follow...

Here we go again... From INTERACTIVE BROKERS _____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Aug 03, 2011 10:43 EDT NOTIFICATION - Margin Increase on Silver Derivatives In light of recent unprecedented volatility in silver markets, the exchanges that offer trading in silver derivative contracts are increasing the margin requirements on these products. In an effort to adequately address the inherent risk resulting from this volatility, IB is increasing margin requirements on silver derivative contracts to a level exceeding that which the exchanges are implementing. Please monitor and manage your risk accordingly. Sincerely, Interactive Brokers Customer Service