Scottrade

Scottrade is a discount online broker that originated as Scottsdale Securities in 1980. Scottrade.com was launched in 1996.

Boglehead-style investing at Scottrade
The building blocks of Boglehead-style investing are low-expense-ratio index mutual funds and/or ETFs. Vanguard fans would suggest that Vanguard has the best and most complete lineup of such funds, and that the most convenient place to hold Vanguard mutual funds is directly at Vanguard. Thus, the Bogleheads forum and Wiki tends to be Vanguard-oriented. But, investing according to the Boglehead philosophy certainly does not require you to invest at Vanguard nor use Vanguard products. Especially if you use ETFs --including Vanguard's own-- a low-cost broker can be a less expensive way to manage a Boglehead portfolio. Here are some notes on how to do it at Scottrade. The information below is up-to-date as of March 26, 2012. Writers have striven for accuracy, but investors should verify information before taking action.

Tools for Boglehead-style investing

 * Don't overlook the 15 Morningstar ETFs for which Scottrade offers free online trades. They satisfy the criteria of "low-cost index ETFs" that cover domestic equities and REITs. These ETFs follow proprietary indices. At this time, their trade volume may be low, and the bid/ask spread spread may be higher than that of Vanguard/iShares ETFs.
 * Scottrade charges $7 per stock or ETF trade conducted online. Thus, using NTF (No Transaction Fee) mutual funds is recommended.
 * To see the NTF Mutual Fund selection, log into your account and then visit the Scottrade NTF Mutual Funds Page.
 * Some investors may wish to follow the Permanent Portfolio. The Permanent Portfolio (PRPFX) mutual fund is available with no transaction fee.

Scottrade tips, links, and general orientation
Whereas the default account at Vanguard is a mutual fund account, in which you can only buy Vanguard mutual funds (all other products require a separate Vanguard Brokerage Service account), the default account at Scottrade is a brokerage account. You can buy mutual funds from various fund families, ETFs, individual stocks, options, bonds, and brokered CDs all within the same Scottrade account. As of March 2012:
 * Scottrade's full fee schedule is here.