BarclayCard Rewards MasterCard Review

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The Barclay card Rewards MasterCard is an excellent points based credit card. It has no annual user fees and comes with easy to accumulate bonus points. You get bonus on all purchases related to even day to day things such as gas, groceries as well as utility payments.

The Good things about Barclay card Rewards MasterCard

The good points worth highlighting about Barclay card Rewards MasterCard are:

• Great Introductory rates:

The card offers 0% introductory interest rates for the first 12 month period, something that is hard to get with other credit card providers.

• Great Sign-up bonus:

To get the sign up bonus, the card holder is expected to make his first purchase or balance transfer to claim 5000 points, that is equivalent to $50 credit. A good way to begin, indeed.

• Zero annual fees:

Normally the reward credit card providers charge an annual usage fee, up to as high as $200. This money compensates for the benefit that on will get by using the card, thus reducing the net benefit. But the Barclay card Rewards MasterCard does not charge any annual fee. A great thing for any card holder as there are no strings attached.

• Great ways to earn bonus rewards:

Normally the reward credit cards have limitations on the options by which one can accumulate credits. With the Barclay card Rewards MasterCard, one accumulates 2 credit points on any purchase of gas, groceries or paying for a utility. For any other purchase, the user gets one reward for every dollar spent.

Having, numerous ways to collect bonus enables the user to accumulate points very fast. Other companies may offer you higher rewards points, but the limitation imposed on accumulating them will now allow the user to use the card frequently.

Downsides of the Barclay card Rewards MasterCard

There are some limitations of the Barclay card Rewards MasterCard. Let us discuss some of them.

• The card needs to remain active:

Sometimes, the reward credit card companies put up expiry dates for claiming the required points else the points get wasted. Though, now many have stopped this, but even then the user has to be careful about such rules. The Barclaycard Rewards MasterCard does not put any such limitation, but the user must keep the card active else the reward points expire.

The card is considered to be inactive if it remains out of use for 3 months at a go. So the user has to be very careful on this point and keep using this card at frequent intervals. If you have the possibility of long periods of nil usage, then claim the required points before such happening.

• Transaction Fees for dealing in foreign currency:

These days most of the credit card companies have stopped charging fees while dealing in foreign currency, but the Barclay card Rewards MasterCard still charges 3% fee for the same. If you are a frequent international traveler, this is something to worry about. If not, then this weakness is not going to affect you much.

In short, the Barclay card Rewards MasterCard is an option worth going for. So do it now.

Make Money With TD Ameritrade

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There are more than 7.2 million people worldwide including Americans who have invested their money with TD Ameritrade. The only drawback of this platform is the fee structure where you will have to pay $9.99 for trading each stock or EFT irrespective of its size. If you take the help of a broker then you will have to pay $49.99 for trading each stock, EFT or Mutual Fund, $25.00 for trading each Treasury bond and $3.50 for trading each feature.

Working with TD Ameritrade is a great experience as the platform is very easy to operate even for novices who have not used the internet earlier. It is very easy for you to find all the information you require and in initiating actions to start trading.

Pros and Cons

The greatest advantages of working with TD Ameritrade is that they provide tools which help you to do your research and educate yourself to understand which trade is going to be profitable and which not. They have invested a large amount of money to provide access to webinars both current and archived ones, articles for helping you, workshops and a long list of other tools to educate you. You are able to access the results of the research carried out by reputed third parties related to the industry. The tools are very easy to use for gathering all the information you need. All these tools will help you select the best investments which can suit you.

Changes, which take place overnight, can cause the investors gain or to lose a lot of money if they have to wait for the next day before they can carry out another trade. This company believes that time is money and allows you to trade after regular hours without charging anything extra for it.

The reputation of TD Ameritrade is upheld by Barron and Smart Money as they have given a rating of 4 points out of 5 to this company. This rating places the company among the topmost ones which have research platforms. They also have given the company a low rating as far as the cost of trading is concerned. Smart Money has rated TD Ameritrade as the third top company which can be used by online investors. It has rated the company’s banking services and online tools as some of the best which are available. The only thing that has been shown in poor light by Smart Money is the fee structure.

As an investor, you may always want an access to the information even while you are travelling. TD Ameritrade has followed in the footsteps of other companies that have given their investors access to the platforms while being mobile and has come up with one of the best of its kind. The application designed by TD Ameritrade can work on any iPhone or iPad, BlackBerry and any hand held device working on operating systems like Windows or Android.

Conclusion

The company is a great one to work with though the fee structure has left a lot to be desired. If you consider the tools, they provide for doing research and for gathering information while you educate yourself; then you will find that the high fee structure is worth it. You will find the tools they provide are far better than those provided by other platforms, and this is the reason why the company is trusted by millions of its clients.

Scottrade Review - Best Online Stock Brokerage

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A good online broker is not only one that has competitive fee structure, but also one that is tailor made to suit your needs. So, before you jump onto the bandwagon and open an account with an online broker, one must understand the features. In this article, we shall review the Scottrade, one of the renowned US based online brokerage firm.

Scotttrade has earned its name to be the best discount broker, with whom one can trade the stocks at a very reasonable and competitive rate. One can also deal with options, futures, ETFs, Mutual funds and bonds. The firm was established in 1980, and today it has grown into a strong 500 branch establishment all round the US. It has earned its position in Forbes List of best US employers in US. They are a company that has maintained its positions high in customer satisfaction surveys.

For a new comer, let us discuss some of the features of Scottrade.

The account is damn easy to open : One can easily open individual as well as a joint account. In case of a joint account, as many as 3 people can be members of the account. The account allows you to trade in almost all kinds of instruments like stocks, bonds, mutual funds, ETFs, options, futures etc. For trading in stocks, the fees are $7 per trade (for stock prices $1 and above), and for options trade the fees is $7 plus $1.25 per trade.

Business and Trust Accounts: Beside individual accounts, one can also open a business (for corporate and LLC) and trust accounts with Scottrade. The trust account variations are regular, PSP, MPP or Keogh.

Individual Retirement Accounts: Scottrade offers different types of retirement accounts for individuals as well as the employers. The type of accounts that are available is Simple IRAs, Traditional, SEP, Roth and Rollover.

Initial Deposit to open an Account : To open a brokerage account with Scottrade one has to make and maintain a minimum deposit of $500. To be able to trade in options, the minimum balance limit gets enhanced to S2000. These levels are very much reasonable compared to other brokerage firms.

Wide Variety of trading options : With Scottrade one can trade in almost all kinds of investment options like that of stocks, bonds, ETFs, mutual funds etc. It gives you the flexibility to invest in instruments of almost 20 countries besides the US. The platform gives the option to invest in almost 15000 mutual fund variants, out of which 3000 funds do not charge any fees. All these variations give and excellent opportunity to diversify.

No maintenance fees: For all investors there are times when there is no trading activity. During such times, Scottrade does not charge any fees. This great money saving option compared to many other brokerage firms which charge some minimum account maintenance fees if there are no trades.

Besides the above benefits, Scottrade is available 24x7 through email, chat or on the phone. They conduct extensive customer education programs, online and offline. The customers also get one to one support through the 500 branches all over US. In short, by choosing Scottrade an investor will make his like easy and profitable. So, go for it, the site is highly recommended.