I need an online stock brokerage - for my IRA

I would like to transfer some of my IRA into a broker such as e-trade and trade it on my own.

My four main criteria are:
-Must allow 401k or IRA accounts
-Must have low commissions
-Must have good customer support
-Must have above average execution speed

Any ideas?

Thank you.

I use ThinkorSwim and Etrade.

Interactive Brokers is another good choice as well. They will also let you trade forex in your IRA too.

i use thinkorswim too...i switched from etrade because their service was terrible. 3 weeks to get money in. 3 months and they still wouldn't enable options trading for me...

i've been with thinkorswim for nearly 6 months and haven't had any issues.

Go with Fidelity or Schwab (...as I am planning, probably with Fidelity). Stay far away from e-trade!!

Fidelity and Schwab are also choc full with financial advisors, so you can talk with one to iron things out.

Thanks Guys,

I note that Think or Swim does not allow short stock trades with IRA accounts. Is this normal?

Yes, IRA accounts can't short and can't trade w/ margin.

I use Trade King and highly recommend.
BTW, I wouldn't trade any stocks right now without a detailed insider trading report.

No broker will allow shorting Stock or naked short options in an IRA account (today).

You can place complex option spreads in your IRA via ThinkorSwim though. So you'd be able to do a synthetic short that way. I would recommend ThinkorSwim for all your trading needs.

what would be the advantage(s) of opening an ira acct to personally manage your trades vs. any other type of account? if you cant short or trade w/ leverage, then how much can this limit your personal strategies? would it not be better to just open a regular or other type of account so that you could take advantage of these options? i mean if one knows how to trade, then they dont need to pay any else to do it for them right?

IRAs aren't really designed for trading, they're more for long term investing. If you have strategies for that, then by all means use them. But trying shorter term trading strategies in an IRA will only end up frustrating you.