RPF0275-TradeKing_Launch
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00:00:14.840 | Welcome to the show, Radicals.
00:00:16.240 | On today's episode, I'm thrilled to introduce you to a new sponsor of the show.
00:00:20.600 | The name will be familiar and my guest will be familiar.
00:00:24.720 | Today, I have an interview for you with Don Montanaro, who is the CEO of Trade King.
00:00:30.720 | Trade King is a new official sponsor of Radical Personal Finance.
00:00:35.080 | And today we're going to talk a little bit about the company, about their competitive position and why I think you should consider them as an excellent company to work with for your stock ownership and brokerage needs.
00:00:48.960 | Welcome to the Radical Personal Finance podcast.
00:01:07.520 | My name is Joshua Sheets and I'm your host.
00:01:09.080 | Thank you for being with me today.
00:01:10.280 | Today, indeed, we get to talk with Trade King CEO Don Montanaro.
00:01:14.520 | I'm really excited about launching this sponsorship because Don and Trade King are exactly the type of company that I have been looking for to bring you here as a sponsor in Radical Personal Finance.
00:01:25.560 | Today, the full story, the competitive landscape and why I really do, really do believe you should consider them as your brokerage vendor.
00:01:34.800 | I first met Don.
00:01:39.200 | I've known the Trade King name for a little bit.
00:01:41.280 | But I first met Don at FinCon 2015 back in September of 2015.
00:01:47.600 | And I interviewed him on the official Trade King stage.
00:01:51.720 | Trade King was a heavy sponsor at FinCon 2015.
00:01:55.200 | They were looking to make a splash in the personal finance industry.
00:01:58.680 | So they did a heavy, big sponsorship.
00:02:00.440 | They were a, I don't know what you call it, big key, keynote, platinum sponsor or whatever of the convention.
00:02:08.320 | And I had the honor of interviewing Don.
00:02:10.240 | And that was episode 240 of the show.
00:02:12.600 | Really enjoyed it.
00:02:13.720 | Prior to that interview, I did some checking on Trade King and did some checking on him so that I'd be prepared for the interview.
00:02:20.800 | And that interview was not necessarily about Trade King or about brokerage companies.
00:02:27.960 | We touched on it a little bit, but I really was interviewing him from the perspective of a CEO position.
00:02:33.360 | Don has a really cool story of having started off in the mailroom of a brokerage company.
00:02:38.520 | And now he's the CEO of a very successful brokerage company, Trade King.
00:02:42.920 | And at that interview, I hit it off with him.
00:02:46.560 | I had received good feedback on Trade King, the company.
00:02:50.440 | And so after coming back from FinCon, I said to him, "Hey, I'm looking for a sponsor for radical personal finance that will be appropriate to the show and to the listeners.
00:03:01.680 | That'll be helpful in the brokerage space."
00:03:04.840 | And so I said, "Would you like to talk?"
00:03:07.800 | So they said, "Yes, we definitely wanted to talk."
00:03:09.720 | And the nice thing is I live in West Palm Beach, Florida, drove down to Fort Lauderdale and was able to meet him.
00:03:14.480 | And that's actually where the interview you'll hear today is recorded.
00:03:19.040 | I was in their Florida office.
00:03:21.560 | They have a North Carolina office and also a Florida office.
00:03:24.080 | And also they've had California offices in the past.
00:03:26.840 | But I was in their Florida office down in Los Olos Boulevard in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, sitting there and talking with them.
00:03:33.160 | Got to meet the staff, got to see their functioning, got to walk all around.
00:03:36.840 | And just see how things were working.
00:03:40.560 | And that helped me to confirm that I really did want to have them as a sponsor.
00:03:45.960 | After that visit and after recording this interview, and we'd worked out some – we'd had some conversations.
00:03:52.000 | I'd spoken with some of his vice presidents on the phone before this interview.
00:03:55.080 | So we had worked out the details.
00:03:56.600 | But that was the final, I guess, confirmation that I needed to make sure that I was comfortable with bringing them on the show.
00:04:04.640 | And Trade King represents the type of company that I've really wanted to bring to you.
00:04:13.560 | In bringing sponsors on the show, it can be a double-edged sword.
00:04:21.960 | Because when I bring sponsors, it obviously dilutes the content of the show a little bit.
00:04:27.000 | You have to listen to me do ads for the companies that I've selected and brought on board.
00:04:31.440 | And so that dilutes the content a little bit.
00:04:34.480 | And so my way of trying to work with that is, in some ways it would be great if I didn't need to bring sponsors on the show.
00:04:41.840 | But in order for me to be able to continue doing it the way I've been doing it, I need to gain increased revenue from the show.
00:04:47.520 | And I haven't been able to do it fully with just the Patreon support.
00:04:52.640 | And so my theory is, let me find sponsors that, number one, I can personally endorse.
00:04:58.120 | And number two, sponsors that really bring value to you.
00:05:02.400 | Because in my mind, advertising and advertising messages and sponsor messages, they're really bad if they're not relevant.
00:05:11.160 | But if they're relevant, then they can be really good.
00:05:14.640 | You think of the topic that you're really interested in, whether you're into fishing or hunting or fashion or whatever it is,
00:05:22.320 | you don't mind seeing a really well-done ad for something that's relevant to you and to your interests.
00:05:28.200 | Or at least I don't.
00:05:29.680 | I enjoy seeing ads that highlight great companies that have great products.
00:05:32.960 | And so I feel the same way about the Radical Personal Finance sponsors and the ads that I have been doing here on the show.
00:05:38.720 | It's my goal is to bring you very relevant companies.
00:05:42.360 | So that's important.
00:05:43.840 | But then even just the first point I mentioned about endorsements, it's my intent to only bring sponsors on the show that are personal endorsements.
00:05:52.200 | And Trade King is the type of company that I'm comfortable endorsing.
00:05:56.640 | After this interview, I went, had lunch with Don, really was able to get the measure of the man in nice lunch that we had down in Los Olos.
00:06:04.760 | And Trade King is that perfect type of company where they're not so huge.
00:06:11.600 | They're not the big five, as you'll hear in this interview.
00:06:14.840 | They're not so huge as to be inaccessible.
00:06:16.960 | But they're not small and questionable as far as a startup.
00:06:20.600 | They're established.
00:06:21.560 | They know what they're doing.
00:06:22.440 | They've got their processes worked out.
00:06:24.000 | So I think that's enough of an intro.
00:06:26.400 | At this point, sit back, relax, enjoy the interview and listen to a little bit of the Trade King story and the market differentiation.
00:06:33.200 | I didn't let Don off easy.
00:06:34.760 | I grilled him a little bit with some difficult questions to find out really who is Trade King and who is Trade King right for.
00:06:42.240 | Don, welcome back to Radical Personal Finance.
00:06:47.920 | Thanks, Joshua.
00:06:48.640 | This might be the fastest time that I've had somebody back on the show because we were just together a couple weeks ago at FinCon.
00:06:54.440 | That was where we met and did the interview on the live Trade King stage there at FinCon and hit it off.
00:07:00.080 | And here I am now in your Fort Lauderdale office.
00:07:02.320 | And we've had some conversations and bringing you aboard as a sponsor.
00:07:05.280 | So it's awesome to come down and see the office here on beautiful East Las Olas Boulevard in Fort Lauderdale.
00:07:12.120 | For people who might not know, I mean, this is a really beautiful part of the world.
00:07:15.960 | I mean, describe Las Olas for people who aren't privileged enough to live in South Florida.
00:07:20.560 | If you have ever visited South Florida, most of the towns down here have a similar layout, which is one main drag that runs east-west towards the beach.
00:07:30.200 | Beach being east.
00:07:31.760 | And got usually restaurants and bars and neat shops and stuff that aggregate on that strip.
00:07:39.480 | And then you go over a bridge, often a drawbridge, over the intercoastal waterway, and then you're at the beach.
00:07:44.400 | So we're sitting right now about a mile and a half from the eastern seaboard in Fort Lauderdale.
00:07:50.840 | And I'm facing east.
00:07:52.560 | I'm facing the ocean.
00:07:53.400 | Yeah.
00:07:53.680 | And Fort Lauderdale is, I think, the waterway capital of the world.
00:07:57.240 | There's more miles of canals, I think, here in Fort Lauderdale than anywhere in the world.
00:08:01.080 | Yeah.
00:08:01.320 | On the side of the police cars, it says the Venice of America.
00:08:04.120 | Exactly.
00:08:04.560 | That's our claim.
00:08:04.960 | So we have 300 and something miles of canals, actually, I think, comparable to what Venice has here.
00:08:10.160 | Yeah.
00:08:10.280 | Yeah.
00:08:10.640 | So many man-made, but also connecting the New River, which you can see out the window off to the south here.
00:08:17.040 | And many natural waterways and the intercoastal waterway connected with a series of canals.
00:08:22.600 | The city was intended to be used from the water.
00:08:25.920 | And it really is fun if I get you out on the water sometime to take a water taxi ride through town.
00:08:31.080 | It is.
00:08:31.200 | And you can get to cool spots and all.
00:08:32.760 | It's a good place.
00:08:33.800 | Awesome.
00:08:34.320 | And you're in this very cool building.
00:08:35.400 | But we're not here to talk about architecture or about scenery.
00:08:39.160 | We're here to talk about trading.
00:08:40.520 | And today we're launching Trade King as an official sponsor of Radical Personal Finance.
00:08:45.440 | And so we've already done kind of an extensive interview about you and your personal background and your personal history.
00:08:52.360 | So in today's show, I want to focus on Trade King the company, and especially within the competitive environment.
00:08:59.120 | There are a lot of options for if somebody wants to own stocks and somebody wants to trade stocks.
00:09:04.080 | There's lots of brokers.
00:09:05.960 | There's lots of online brokers.
00:09:07.160 | There's lots of discount brokers.
00:09:08.880 | I'd love for you to talk through who is Trade King and what makes you guys different from your competition.
00:09:15.000 | Yeah.
00:09:15.680 | So what we're really focused on and what we're super passionate about at Trade King is customer service, is really treating every client the way we would want to be treated.
00:09:24.880 | Our company motto is "Be Good."
00:09:26.880 | And we started this company over 10 years ago, centered around the idea that you could build a financial service company that was really intent on being honest and really caring about customers.
00:09:39.000 | And doing a good thing, leaving everybody better than you found them.
00:09:41.840 | And could do that in a way that offers great value and is still a profitable business so it makes sense for us and for our investors who own stock in Trade King.
00:09:49.280 | I'm really proud at what we've built so far and we're working hard to make it better all the time.
00:09:53.920 | I think something for people to think about when they're choosing a brokerage relationship or an online broker, and you point out a key point, there are so many to pick from.
00:10:03.040 | Right.
00:10:03.360 | Right.
00:10:03.520 | So there are, you know, we consider our competition, we call them the big five, Schwab, Fidelity, E-Trade, Ameritrade, Scottrade, all with millions and millions of customers.
00:10:11.920 | And frankly, you feel like you're one of millions and millions of customers when you interact with them, which is one key difference with Trade King.
00:10:19.600 | But the thing that you point out about there being so many choices, centers around the fact that if you know what you want to do, if you're a self-directed investor who knows what investment you want to make, let's say you want to buy one or 10 or 100 shares of Apple computer.
00:10:34.000 | When you make that decision and place that trade, you can place it through Trade King, we'll charge you $4.95.
00:10:39.920 | You can place it through Ameritrade, they'll charge you $9.95.
00:10:43.400 | You can place it through a Merrill Lynch broker or someone else, they'll charge you 50 bucks or 100 bucks or $300, depends on where you get it.
00:10:50.640 | You're going to get the same 100 shares of Apple stock.
00:10:53.760 | It's the exact same thing.
00:10:55.000 | It literally is a commodity that is being delivered to you.
00:10:58.120 | It's the exact same stock.
00:10:59.200 | You'll get it at exactly the same price.
00:11:00.760 | So then what's different about choosing a broker?
00:11:03.200 | It's the stuff that's wrapped around that.
00:11:04.640 | It's the experience.
00:11:05.480 | For us, it starts with service.
00:11:06.880 | Are you the cheapest in the market?
00:11:09.560 | We're not the cheapest.
00:11:11.600 | There is one player that's cheaper than us who offers a no-service model.
00:11:19.160 | So it's really a do-it-yourself model for, I guess, semi-pros.
00:11:22.640 | We do sometimes have clients who leave attracted by that cheaper price to go to that other player.
00:11:28.320 | And they'll usually come back after they get treated, frankly, meanly.
00:11:33.480 | Literally, they get treated meanly on the phone.
00:11:35.680 | It's crazy, but it happens.
00:11:38.000 | I love to get a good deal.
00:11:39.600 | But I'll tell you one thing I've learned in my lifetime is generally it's hard for me to want to ever choose the cheapest.
00:11:45.320 | And usually the biggest reason is I'm concerned.
00:11:49.000 | I don't want to waste the time if the cheapest goes out of business.
00:11:53.440 | And there are some companies that can build a business model on being the cheapest.
00:11:58.160 | But it's hard because it seems like there's always somebody else coming along that can do it cheaper.
00:12:02.880 | And when you're dealing at the bottom of the price schedule, I've had the experience the company goes out of business.
00:12:08.320 | And then I'm in a problem and I got to find.
00:12:11.000 | So a good value for me, I look for a good value, a fair value proposition.
00:12:15.880 | But I try not to work with just the cheapest on the market.
00:12:18.600 | It's funny.
00:12:18.960 | When you asked me that question, Joshua, I literally was thinking about another player who I know is also running a profitable brokerage firm like I am.
00:12:26.520 | It's a sustainable enterprise.
00:12:27.920 | I even don't allow into my mind there is a player in the space right now.
00:12:31.960 | And it seems like every few years there's another player in the space that does this.
00:12:35.760 | It is offering free trades.
00:12:37.560 | Yeah.
00:12:37.920 | Right.
00:12:38.160 | So they say no commission, free trades.
00:12:39.960 | Right.
00:12:40.640 | So that's literally as low as you can go.
00:12:43.240 | Right.
00:12:43.520 | But it begs the question, well, what are they doing?
00:12:46.120 | Are they running a charity?
00:12:47.200 | Well, no, obviously the trade really isn't free and they must be making money somewhere else from you.
00:12:53.560 | Fees, other things.
00:12:54.760 | And or they have a business model that ultimately cannot work.
00:12:58.640 | Right.
00:12:59.080 | So you're trying to take your hard earned money and turn it into more money in a safe and thoughtful way.
00:13:08.120 | And doing business with a company that themselves are not doing that with their own money.
00:13:12.920 | They're running a business that can make money for themselves.
00:13:15.600 | That's kind of counterintuitive to me.
00:13:17.200 | So I don't even count people that come into the space with the gimmicky pricing stuff.
00:13:20.560 | Yeah.
00:13:20.720 | But you can't.
00:13:21.720 | I mean, every business, the only business models I know of where people are willing to create a business for free and pour tons of money into it and they view it as sustainable is if they're just simply gambling on their acquisition.
00:13:34.760 | You know, I have friends that are app developers and this is basically the deal.
00:13:38.920 | Everyone gets acquired.
00:13:40.000 | So what we're going to do is we're going to create a great app.
00:13:42.080 | We're going to sink some money into it.
00:13:43.440 | Once we get some traction, we're going to bring on investors and then we're going to sell out and we're going to look for that payday.
00:13:49.640 | It might work.
00:13:51.160 | It can work, but not in a business.
00:13:53.840 | If you look at, okay, if something is free or something is super cheap, what's the product?
00:13:58.000 | The best example that we're all involved with is Facebook.
00:14:00.520 | You know, the product that Facebook has is me.
00:14:03.200 | That's why it's free to me because I'm actually the product.
00:14:05.600 | My data is the product that Facebook sells.
00:14:09.240 | And so it's not free.
00:14:11.480 | I'm just not the consumer of it.
00:14:13.400 | The customer of Facebook is the one who's paying the money for their business model.
00:14:19.040 | Yeah, for the advertising, etc.
00:14:20.640 | So I think it's important just to realize that.
00:14:24.240 | I'd like to say, I don't know if I'm dating myself.
00:14:29.520 | I'm 49 years old, so I still remember when banks used to give out free toasters, you know, if you opened an account.
00:14:35.520 | So I always love to say the toaster was never really free.
00:14:38.200 | Right.
00:14:38.440 | Right.
00:14:38.880 | So you always have to look under the covers.
00:14:41.520 | And the cheaper something feels, you need to ask what the catch is.
00:14:45.080 | Yeah.
00:14:45.520 | You do.
00:14:45.920 | The free lunch that the financial advisor gives you is not free.
00:14:50.240 | The toaster is not free.
00:14:51.520 | There ain't no free lunch.
00:14:53.200 | Rule one of economics.
00:14:55.880 | So what is the type, so as we launch your sponsorship here and you're trying to bring somebody in, what in your mind is the ideal customer?
00:15:04.720 | Who is Trade King the best for?
00:15:07.200 | Yeah, so we're really, our mantra around here is that we're building the modern diversified financial services company.
00:15:15.360 | We're not all the way there yet.
00:15:16.800 | We don't have a lot of the banking pieces and things that ultimately we'll get to when we get to a certain size and scale.
00:15:22.360 | But we really are trying to take a modern approach to doing business with all kinds of investors.
00:15:28.040 | So we started focused on self-directed investors, people who have experience trading their own accounts or who are, have saved up some money and feel like they're ready to take that step.
00:15:38.800 | Ready to dedicate some time to doing some research, using the tools, the free tools that we offer, the free education that we offer.
00:15:45.040 | And want to get into directing their own investments.
00:15:47.000 | Particularly people who are interested in trading options.
00:15:49.200 | We have some great tools for those investors.
00:15:52.000 | But as time has gone on, we have been able to broaden our approach to be able to, you know, begin to be able to offer the services.
00:16:00.800 | And we're getting really close now for people in their entire life cycle of investing.
00:16:04.400 | So right now, between our new Trade King Advisors Unit, where you can start, if you're not sure what to do with your money, you can start with as little as $500.
00:16:12.480 | And put it in an account that will be diversified for you.
00:16:15.760 | And you can watch how we manage it and how it grows.
00:16:18.640 | You can add that, add to that account a self-directed Trade King Securities account where you can say, hey, besides having a diversified portfolio of ETFs that you guys manage for me, I would like to buy those 10 shares of Apple or five shares of this or 100 shares of that.
00:16:33.800 | So we have, you know, probably a third of our clients, this is their first financial relationship in terms of connecting to the stock market.
00:16:42.400 | Not their first banking relationship, but their first brokerage style relationship.
00:16:46.200 | So we're great at beginners, great at that education.
00:16:48.840 | We've got to invest in a heck of a lot in our technology to have it be customizable for people who, as you get along the learning curve and get through our educational materials, learn from your own experience, often skin your knees a few times.
00:17:01.680 | That's part of learning anything, usually.
00:17:04.120 | You can use more tools and more modules and get exposure to other asset classes, trading options, trading bonds, fixed income, you know, moving yourself into the more active phase if it's appropriate for you.
00:17:18.160 | We have roughly half of our clients are 35 years old or younger.
00:17:24.960 | So we, without trying to, I think just by being an approachable brand with a good value proposition, you know, we like to say, and there were ads on TV at one point that said you could talk to Chuck, but you could never really talk to Chuck.
00:17:36.560 | But you can talk to me.
00:17:37.760 | You can talk to me.
00:17:39.120 | I'm available.
00:17:39.760 | I'm on the site.
00:17:41.160 | I have a blog.
00:17:41.920 | I have a Twitter feed.
00:17:43.440 | I'm really accessible.
00:17:45.400 | And all of our customer service reps actually really care about the people we talk to.
00:17:50.720 | And I think that's literally the most distinctive difference of us and the people we compete with.
00:17:55.480 | It's that myself and my co-founders and almost all the senior managers at Trade King, we started in the business in customer service and we have just a real passion for it.
00:18:04.320 | And that passion scales and it's infectious.
00:18:08.120 | It catches on throughout the organization and everybody realizes whether they're answering phones, emails, connecting with people through social networks, clients, prospective clients.
00:18:18.840 | Although our client service reps might do those activities 50 or 100 times a day, answer 100 emails or 100 phone calls a day, each time they pick up that phone, they don't treat it like it's their 80th call of the day.
00:18:32.760 | They know that it's not the client's 80th phone call they're making that day to a stockbroker.
00:18:37.200 | It's their first.
00:18:37.960 | And they've made a to-do list over the weekend or a couple weeks ago and one of the things they wanted to do was call and ask some questions of a few different brokers and figure out where to put their account or ask a question about their existing account.
00:18:49.640 | Where's my dividend?
00:18:50.520 | What's going on with this particular stock?
00:18:52.280 | Something often calls are educational in nature that people need to learn that next thing to empower them.
00:18:57.760 | So we really treasure every one of those touches.
00:19:01.080 | You think of an online broker and you think it's an electronic relationship so the personal touch wouldn't be as important.
00:19:07.280 | It's much more important because we don't get too many chances to interact personally with our clients.
00:19:13.520 | So when you call us or email us or open a chat session with us, we love it.
00:19:17.400 | We really appreciate connecting with you and we want to help you.
00:19:19.880 | We want to make you better.
00:19:20.680 | It's better for you and better for us.
00:19:21.960 | Are there any particular trading styles or strategies that are popular in the marketplace for people who are investing using some of these strategies that you guys can't effectively service?
00:19:35.440 | Is there any real weaknesses where you say now if you're going to implement this strategy, you're much better off at one of your competitors?
00:19:42.040 | We really are trying to focus on people who are not gamblers, who are trying to pursue a life goal, who are trying to improve themselves and their family and move towards saving money to put the kids through college or to save for their own retirement or just create some extra income for themselves and their family, that kind of thing.
00:20:03.960 | There are places that perhaps get catered to a more speculative trader, a more gambly kind of a thing.
00:20:11.280 | You'll see that sometimes in the foreign exchange brokers sometimes will really appeal to that.
00:20:17.360 | Hey, with just a little bit of money, we can give you a ton of leverage and you can, you know, with $1,000 be trading $500,000 positions and just crazy, crazy stuff.
00:20:26.280 | And that's not our spot.
00:20:29.120 | Our spot are people who are real retail clients first off.
00:20:33.800 | Almost every one of our clients has a regular day job.
00:20:36.520 | They make their money doing something else.
00:20:37.880 | They're not doing investing as their profession.
00:20:41.360 | So, you know, that's kind of the natural path of a trading client is they're not a pro, right?
00:20:48.000 | They're a retail client.
00:20:49.600 | We cater to them and we really work hard to make ourselves available in whatever way they want to approach us, our clients.
00:20:57.760 | Whether they want to connect with us electronically through the phone, whether you want to learn your education by reading, by watching, listening to a podcast,
00:21:05.640 | listening to a webinar, interacting with somebody through a live chat session.
00:21:10.400 | Whatever way works for you, connect with us through social networks, whatever way works for you to get information from us and get to know us and move your own learning,
00:21:19.240 | yourself down the learning curve further, that's what works for us.
00:21:22.800 | It has to.
00:21:23.320 | We're here for you.
00:21:23.960 | I want to finish up with talking about the managed accounts that you guys are offering.
00:21:31.560 | So this is an interesting product offering and it's very much in line with some of the trends in the industry.
00:21:38.120 | Talk about the managed advisor services and what that is, what it's similar to, what the costs are, what the investment styles are.
00:21:46.400 | Explain how those accounts operate.
00:21:48.880 | Sure. If you visit TradeKingAdvisors.com, you'll see it's a really simple but powerful offering.
00:21:55.200 | We've partnered with a Morningstar company called Ibbotson to help us construct portfolios for different people of different risk tolerance levels or with different time horizons for their investments.
00:22:07.280 | So you can either start with a dialogue that says, "Hey, I've got a particular investing goal.
00:22:12.320 | I'm trying to save for retirement or I'm trying to save for college or I want to have a vacation house or I want to take a trip," or whatever your goal might be.
00:22:19.680 | You start from that goal.
00:22:21.200 | You go through a series of questions and it helps you determine your risk tolerance and helps us understand what the right portfolio construction is.
00:22:30.160 | Or you can just go into what's called a risk tolerance questionnaire, a more standard thing that you would go through if you actually met with a financial advisor.
00:22:38.120 | They try and make it feel personal, but really they're using a computer program to ask you questions about yourself and your family and your age and your other assets that you hold and how comfortable you are taking certain levels of risk.
00:22:49.880 | And then they will recommend a pie chart of, you should be X percent in domestic equities and X percent in international, X percent in bonds, et cetera.
00:23:00.800 | So what Traking Advisors is, and there are some other firms that are doing the same thing, represents a real breakthrough in financial services where that initial step where you had to have typically a couple million dollars in investable assets to get in front of a quality financial advisor who would take you through that interview process and get to a portfolio construction for you has been opened up and put online and made available for people to do themselves.
00:23:28.800 | And therefore you can get involved with as little as $500 with TradeKings.
00:23:32.400 | We've got, again, depending on what your investment style, your risk tolerance and your time horizon are, we've got what's called a core portfolio, which is a little bit safer over time.
00:23:42.840 | And you can see the track record of how these portfolios have done over time, back tested and since we've actually had money in the portfolios for a couple years now, I guess.
00:23:51.840 | And we also have a more aggressive portfolio that's called a momentum portfolio that trades a little bit more frequently and really tries to capitalize on the ups and downs of the markets as a little bit more active trading.
00:24:03.400 | So for that portfolio, you need to start with about $5,000 because otherwise the activity in the account will drain on your returns too much.
00:24:10.520 | So we've kind of done the math to figure out what's the right level to get started, the minimum level to get started in either account.
00:24:16.920 | So it's a really great way.
00:24:18.520 | Like if anybody is out there listening to this, I think your listeners, Joshua, they're listening to these podcasts because they are aware that they need to be doing something for themselves.
00:24:27.640 | And maybe they're doing it already.
00:24:29.960 | Maybe they're doing it or have been trying to do it and they're frustrated.
00:24:33.840 | Well, sometimes you have the best intentions to start to save for your family or save for one of those life goals.
00:24:40.360 | But life gets in the way, right?
00:24:42.000 | You have a bunch of stuff to do and you don't ever get to spend the time on the weekends or at night to investigate different investment strategies or compare an ETF to another.
00:24:52.280 | We're here to help you with that in the Trading Advisors entity that we've launched.
00:24:57.200 | And it works really nicely with the regular trading account.
00:24:59.560 | As I say, you can see in one dashboard your managed portfolio along with those individual stocks if you choose to purchase some along the way, et cetera.
00:25:07.240 | So it's a really nice interface, really simple to use.
00:25:11.080 | And again, the difference I think for us always when you stack us up against anybody in a space that we compete in, it's going to be the service component.
00:25:19.960 | So there are other firms that are out there that are getting a bit of publicity, Wealthfront, Betterment, et cetera, that do I guess what's being called robo advising.
00:25:29.920 | I was going to say, are you guys calling yourselves a robo advisor?
00:25:32.000 | Are you trying to differentiate from that?
00:25:33.920 | Our differentiator is that service component.
00:25:36.000 | So we have half of our employees are in service functions.
00:25:39.560 | We have a service culture here.
00:25:41.400 | We do not have a mentality that a machine can do everything for you and you should just interact with a machine and the machine can get to know you so well.
00:25:48.600 | We certainly use a lot of complicated algorithms to help us figure out the portfolio construction and rebalance your portfolio based on market conditions and things like that.
00:25:57.280 | The fact is we've got an army of people here in Fort Lauderdale and a bigger, much larger army at our place up in Charlotte, North Carolina.
00:26:04.080 | They're just waiting to be able to take care of you and answer your questions and address your concerns, which I think especially in times of market volatility,
00:26:13.600 | an all electronic robotic experience sure isn't going to give me comfort on a day when I'm confused or anxious or scared about what's going on in the market or in the world, the financial world.
00:26:27.280 | Do you know off the top of your head what the costs are for that portfolio ballpark?
00:26:30.960 | Yes, so 25 basis points for the core and 50 basis points for the momentum portfolio.
00:26:37.840 | We also have a neat product that you can do as an add-on called Risk Assist.
00:26:43.920 | This is a product that monitors your portfolio and market volatility over time.
00:26:50.080 | You can add this layer on for an extra 25 basis points if you like.
00:26:54.160 | A significant number of our clients are attracted to this kind of thing.
00:27:00.720 | What it does is it has a volatility measure, a predicting volatility measure, and looks at the market and says,
00:27:08.080 | "Things are going to get turbulent and it will remove you from all market exposed positions in terms of equities, etc., and move you into a treasury portfolio,
00:27:16.400 | move you into fixed income for a period of time, then move you back into the portfolio afterwards."
00:27:21.920 | When you look at the back testing, it has performed fantastic through some really turbulent times, including the 2008-2009 period.
00:27:31.280 | It really did fantastic.
00:27:32.480 | And then in some years, like 2013, when the market was up 30%, it didn't kick off all year.
00:27:38.080 | So it's not like running a hedge that is a drain on your portfolio all the time.
00:27:42.320 | It's a strategy that runs alongside your portfolio and only touches it in times of trouble.
00:27:47.200 | So again, we're really trying to bring simple solutions that can appeal to a broad range of investors,
00:27:53.520 | but to cover a lot of different people at a lot of different points in their life cycle.
00:27:58.560 | Awesome.
00:27:59.600 | Anything else that you'd love a prospective customer to know before they come and open up an account?
00:28:06.240 | I think driving back to where you were initially around price, I want to retouch on that.
00:28:11.680 | So a lot of people do look and say $495, and you're competing with Ameritrade at $995 or Fidelity at $895 or somebody else at $7.
00:28:21.360 | What's the difference?
00:28:22.560 | What am I missing if I come to Trade King?
00:28:24.880 | Well, you can literally stack those people up, and if you pay attention to advertising you see in the world, that's the difference.
00:28:31.920 | So Ameritrade charges twice what we charge because they spend 300 and I think this year they'll spend $330 million on advertising.
00:28:40.320 | So are you saying I should have called them for a sponsorship instead of you?
00:28:44.480 | Because we didn't cut a $300 million deal.
00:28:46.960 | I'm just kidding.
00:28:48.000 | You won't get to sit with Fred Tomczyk.
00:28:51.040 | I'll guarantee you that, Joshua.
00:28:53.040 | I'm kidding. Keep going.
00:28:54.880 | So that's literally the difference.
00:28:57.040 | As you look at the price breaks of those big five players I talked about and look about where we are,
00:29:02.080 | the difference is in how frequently you see their name on the side of a NASCAR or you see ads on primetime television or you see that kind of thing.
00:29:10.240 | In a $9.95 trade compared to our $4.95 trade, you're paying for the commercials that are running to capture next year's customers.
00:29:17.520 | That's the difference for us.
00:29:19.200 | We like battling it out down here at ground level with guys like you, Joshua,
00:29:24.320 | who are committed to really bringing value and bringing a modern experience to people and real information.
00:29:30.960 | So we're down here.
00:29:31.920 | We're winning customers one by one through channels like this and through social media and through people actually getting to know us,
00:29:38.320 | which we're not afraid of, we encourage.
00:29:40.320 | Love it. Thanks, Don.
00:29:42.320 | Cool. Thank you, bud.
00:29:44.320 | That's Don and the Trade King story.
00:29:47.520 | So the thing that you should be aware from here is you're going to hear me reading ads.
00:29:51.920 | Basically, my recommendation is this.
00:29:54.320 | I have done a lot of due diligence on Trade King.
00:29:56.720 | I spoke with friends of mine who are active traders.
00:30:00.320 | I checked them out online on all the forums and things that I could find, trying to find any negative reviews, any real problems.
00:30:07.280 | And I didn't find any negative reviews or any problems that caused me any concern.
00:30:13.920 | So I'm confident with Trade King as an excellent brokerage opportunity.
00:30:18.960 | And after visiting the – excuse me, excellent brokerage provider.
00:30:22.400 | After visiting their office there in Fort Lauderdale, Don is working hard.
00:30:26.960 | Everything that you heard in the interview, Don is working really hard to continue to enhance that culture of customer service.
00:30:36.160 | So when you bring those things together, $4.95 trades, great price point, saves you money, great customer service,
00:30:43.280 | and the fact that you can work with a company that cares about you and that will help you in your personal trading activities,
00:30:49.280 | I strongly recommend try opening an account.
00:30:52.080 | And to sweeten the deal, as part of the sponsorship deal, Trade King will give you $100 cash when you open an account using my code.
00:31:00.480 | So go to TradeKing.com/radical, TradeKing.com/radical.
00:31:05.280 | And there are two offers there.
00:31:06.640 | There's either open a brokerage account and get $100 cash credited to your trading account or if you would like to try their Trade King advisor platform,
00:31:15.280 | then you can have one of those accounts with no advisor fees for the first six months.
00:31:20.320 | So it's a win-win deal, win for you, win for me, win for Trade King.
00:31:24.640 | And I encourage you, those of you who would have an interest in owning accounts like that, accounts with stocks in them, I would encourage you to check them out.
00:31:33.680 | We've got a lot of do-it-yourselfers in the audience here and if you are interested in trading, if you're interested in owning stocks,
00:31:39.280 | then I strongly recommend consider opening a Trade King account.
00:31:43.920 | TradeKing.com/radical.
00:31:45.920 | So I hope this is useful to you.
00:31:47.360 | Thank you for listening to today's show.
00:31:49.360 | Don, thank you for being willing to bring your company to the table.
00:31:54.000 | I look forward to a long and fruitful relationship with Trade King.
00:31:58.320 | I'm pretty excited about it.
00:32:00.000 | So that's it for today's show.
00:32:01.360 | I will be back with you every day this week.
00:32:05.040 | I've got lots of exciting stuff coming up, details coming in future shows.
00:32:09.680 | But I think for today, those are your marching orders.
00:32:12.400 | TradeKing.com/radical.
00:32:13.680 | Open an account, get $100 credited to your account.
00:32:15.840 | Hey, for some of you, it might be some easy money for you to get your feet wet and buy some stocks.
00:32:21.920 | Be careful.
00:32:24.960 | Do your research.
00:32:25.760 | But enjoy.
00:32:27.360 | Peace out, y'all.
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