C2BROKER commission-free broker released in public beta

Earlier this week we launched our broker offering C2BROKER (“C2B”) in public beta. You can learn more and open an account at: C2BROKER

We spent a lot of time putting together the Help Center. It should answer most questions. Ask away at:
C2B Help Center

To save you some time, and help you decide if the beta program is right for you, here are a few important (mostly temporary) things to be aware of.

1). U.S. customers only. You must be a U.S. citizen, residing in the U.S. We’ll roll out additional countries over the year.
2). You will “trade” through C2, either by managing or following a strategy. To start, there will be no C2B trading platform.
3). You can open a margin account, but shorting of stocks or option spreads are not permitted. Both will be supported soon.
4). You can open an IRA, but cannot rollover another retirement account to fund it. Search IRA in the Help Center for an explanation. Rollover and ACAT also coming soon.
5) There is a $10,000 minimum for cash accounts. $15,000 for margin accounts. No minimum balance required after the initial funding.

Now on to the good stuff. If you are a C2 customer and have a Basic Trade Leader plan (or higher), or any level AutoTrade plan, you can trade unlimited U.S. equity and options contracts will ZERO commissions. There are no C2B plans or fees of any kind.

Final thoughts. As many of you know, we are a very small, scrappy team here at C2. So please take into consideration the word beta. This doesn’t mean that your money will be vaporized (the custodian is Apex Clearing ) or that you are in store for big, hairy bugs. It does mean that we ask you be patient with us in the early going as we work to make C2BROKER the compelling extension to C2 that we’re confident it will become.

Hi Rod,
It still seems a little unclear.
(A) Clearly I could now open a C2B account and use it to follow (autotrade) a strategy.
(B) Less clearly, I could NOT at this time open a C2B account and use it to manage my strategy as a trade leader.

I’m more interested in (B), but from your number 2, it seems (B) is not yet available due to lack of a C2B trading platform… is this correct?

When will you offer futures trading on C2B?

We may offer futures trading on C2B at some point, however, it would not have the same completely commission-free pricing structure.

Thanks for your question.

You are correct, there is no “BrokerTransmit” capability available yet for C2B.

To manage a strategy at C2B, you would AutoTrade your own strategy and then you can send signals to C2 using any available method (C2 Quick Trade Web, Platform Transmit, etc). For now, this would require an AutoTrade license. Your strategy would also qualify for Trades Own Strategy.

1 Like

who is the clearing broker ? Interactive Broker ?

I believe it’s Apex Clearing.

Personally ACH transfers and rollover capabilities are a must for me. I don’t want to pay $35 per wire deposit and $5,500 is too small of an account to make it worthwhile IMHO. Is there a planned date for these two features or a particular place to check for notification of these two features?

1 Like

All major banks offer 3 day “wires” for little ($5) or no cost. They actually use the ACH network for these.

We will be adding support for rollovers within a few months or a work around very soon. The work around will utilize the once-per-year rollover rule. If a distribution from an IRA or a retirement plan is paid directly to you, you can deposit all or a portion of it in an IRA or a retirement plan within 60 days.

I’ll provide updates on this forum and also send C2BROKER notices to our entire user list.

Rod, please provide a link to the for 3-day wire service for Citibank (which I assume is considered a major bank)

AFAIK they have actual wire transfers and they have ACH transfers. I have never heard of a “psuedo wire” transfer that takes 3 days and actually uses ACH as the transfer mechanism.

I can’t provide links to any banking services. You can contact your bank to ask if they have a next day or 3-day wire or some version of a wire that isn’t $25-30. If not, we’ll announce when ACH is available. Here is a screenshot of the feature at BofA. http://c2broker.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/2018-05-01-07_51_39-Bank-of-America--Online-Banking--Transfer-Funds-_-Transfer-Guide.png

1 Like

The services you linked to are ACH, the only wire transfer on that screen is the one listed as wire. For the other two you provide the normal ACH information (account # and routing #) not the information that is required for a wire transfer.

If these BoA services work then it sounds like C2B allows ACH in but not ACH out at this time, otherwise I don’t understand the distinction you are making.

A post was split to a new topic: Fund your C2Broker account with ACH, trade commission free

I saw this announcement in the What’s New feed: “Any Trade Leader with a Premium Plan can follow their own strategy at C2BROKER and earn TOS status. Pay no commissions or AutoTrade fees. Plus, investors like strategy managers that trade with live capital.”

I am still working on opening a C2 Broker account but was wondering what the steps are for a trade leader to AutoTrade his own strategy with no AutoTrade fees. If I click to AutoTrade my own account it takes me directly to purchase an AutoTrade plan. It doesn’t seem to ask if I have a C2 Broker account and want to use the free AutoTrade option. (I do have the Premium Plan like the description says is required.)

Do you own a Trade Leader Premium Plan? The Premium TL Plan is required to set-up AutoTrading of your own strategy at C2BROKER. If you do have a Premium Plan and are still seeing a page requiring an AutoTrade Plan, please send an email to help@collective2.com

I do have a premium plan. I think it may have been because I clicked to AutoTrade rather than clicking manage then TOS. I see on the C2Broker website it says, “C2BROKER also does not currently support trading in mutual funds, bonds, preferred stocks, tracking stocks, and many leveraged ETFs.” Is there a way to check before opening an account to see what “leveraged ETFs” are not available? For example, I would like to know which of these if any are available: SSO, UPRO, ZIV, SVXY, VMIN, VXX?

http://support.c2broker.com/article/show/59458-what-type-of-securities-can-i-trade

Yes, you are correct in that the issue is you started the process through AutoTrade settings. You want to go to https://collective2.com/trades-own-strategy/configure

All those symbols are valid and tradeable at C2BROKER. We’re going to update the article you sited to reflect that the margin requirements may be different but that the “grey list” (unsupported symbols) of securities does not include leveraged ETFs.

1 Like

I just wanted to give some feedback on C2Broker and say that I really like it. The ACH transfer and set up was probably the fastest of any ACH I have ever had to set up. The commission free trades are a huge bonus, and I really like that trade leaders with a Premium plan can pay $0 extra and autotrade their own strategy to earn a TOS badge. Keep up the good work C2!

I saw there are IRA rollovers now for C2Broker. Great work! I’m very glad to see that, but as any pesky consumer am already wondering about the next features.

Does C2Broker intend to have “Margin IRA” that allows the account holder to trade with unsettled funds similar to Interactive Brokers? Is that feature on the radar? As of right now the margin account at C2Broker doesn’t seem to allow trading with unsettled funds since there isn’t actually any margin to the margin account yet. So I guess the same question goes for non IRA accounts also.

It’s unlikely Third Party will allow trading with unsettled funds (e.g. margining the unsettled cash). We are optimizing around account sizes and trade sizing that shouldn’t need it. Next up is multi-leg options and shorting.

1 Like