Best Online Brokerage (European Investor)

Hi Guys,

as the subject indicates, I'm looking to open a brokerage account to trade. I would like to mostly rely on my laptop for this (trading via an app is not really my thing). The starting balance will be lower five figures, so I should make the minimum for most brokerages. My focus will be equities and some fixed income, and a limited amount of options (nothing exotic). After initiating the money, I do not think that I will trade a lot (I see myself doing max 10trades/month). I plan to build a mostly passive portfolio and to combine this with stock picks if I find an attractive investment opportunity. For research purposes, I will be able to access my university's Bloomberg, and besides this will use Yahoo Finance.

From my prior research, I have found that Interactive brokers (low transaction fee, and good system for filling orders) and Fidelity (higher transaction fees, but a large variety of iShares ETFs with no transaction fees) are seen as some of the best brokers.

What are your experiences with these two brokerages? Which one would you suggest, and if none of them which other brokerage do you use? Or are there important caveats that I am missing?

Cheers!

3 Comments
 

With regards to what I expect, it just depends. Cheap and good execution are the things, that I cannot get via some extra work, so that is most important of course. Things such as portfolio monitoring and some risk analysis would be nice, but it is not needed as I can just quickly program some risk analytics and sensitivities in excel (yes I know volatility modeling in excel sucks, I'm too lazy to dust off my MATLAB).

In the end, there are a lot of nice to have things, but those are not what I will make the selection dependent on (naturally, I will be comparing the nice to have features of the options I have).

 

Ut asperiores et vero dolor laudantium et sed. Reprehenderit vitae enim nesciunt. Velit blanditiis perferendis odit aut impedit. Incidunt aut aut accusantium suscipit et magnam debitis minus. Iure est delectus autem praesentium consequatur ipsam dignissimos. Voluptatum minus accusantium eaque possimus quia dolorem nemo.

Aspernatur in vel quia molestiae minima. Eos impedit corrupti est doloremque. Dolorem unde cum doloribus amet aperiam dolorum id.

Sint neque porro blanditiis quo repellendus laudantium. Eligendi molestias aliquid nesciunt vero. Vel et voluptatem molestias deleniti possimus. Rerum facere quis alias nihil voluptatum quia. Sed minus consectetur dolores et at.

Maiores voluptatem iusto nemo. Quibusdam adipisci autem blanditiis quisquam. Quidem rem in eum. Harum quia quia est officiis eius libero deleniti. Culpa laborum optio ut. Qui ducimus est nemo perspiciatis doloribus. Dolorem tempora corporis sed maiores rerum labore voluptatem et. Mollitia aspernatur sunt expedita.

Career Advancement Opportunities

June 2026 Investment Banking

  • Evercore 01 99.4%
  • Moelis & Company 01 98.8%
  • JPMorgan 01 98.2%
  • Guggenheim Partners 01 97.7%
  • Morgan Stanley 07 97.1%

Overall Employee Satisfaction

June 2026 Investment Banking

  • Moelis & Company No 99.4%
  • Morgan Stanley 01 98.8%
  • Evercore 01 98.2%
  • BMO Capital Markets 12 97.6%
  • Banco Santander 01 97.1%

Professional Growth Opportunities

June 2026 Investment Banking

  • Moelis & Company No 99.4%
  • Evercore No 98.8%
  • Morgan Stanley 05 98.2%
  • JPMorgan No 97.7%
  • BMO Capital Markets 12 97.1%

Total Avg Compensation

June 2026 Investment Banking

  • Vice President (14) $434
  • Associates (43) $259
  • 3rd+ Year Analyst (8) $210
  • 2nd Year Analyst (22) $179
  • Intern/Summer Associate (13) $156
  • 1st Year Analyst (75) $151
  • Intern/Summer Analyst (67) $101
notes
16 IB Interviews Notes

“... there’s no excuse to not take advantage of the resources out there available to you. Best value for your $ are the...”

Leaderboard

1
redever's picture
redever
99.2
2
BankonBanking's picture
BankonBanking
99.0
3
kanon's picture
kanon
99.0
4
Secyh62's picture
Secyh62
99.0
5
CompBanker's picture
CompBanker
98.9
6
DrApeman's picture
DrApeman
98.9
7
dosk17's picture
dosk17
98.9
8
Betsy Massar's picture
Betsy Massar
98.9
9
GameTheory's picture
GameTheory
98.9
10
bolo up's picture
bolo up
98.8
success
From 10 rejections to 1 dream investment banking internship

“... I believe it was the single biggest reason why I ended up with an offer...”