Scottrade

Scottrade
Type Private
Industry Financial Services, Discount Brokerage, Self-directed Investing
Founded Scottsdale, Arizona (1980)
Headquarters St. Louis, Missouri, USA
Key people Rodger O. Riney
(President and CEO)
Jane Wulf
(Chief Administrative Officer)
Ron Wiese
(Chief Financial Officer)
Ian Patterson
(Chief Information Officer)
Products Stock Broker, Investing Online: Stocks, Options, Mutual Funds, IRAs, CDs, Fixed Income, Etc.
Revenue $838.10 million (2008) [1]
Employees 3,300 (2010) [2]
Website scottrade.com

Scottrade is a privately owned American discount retail brokerage firm headquartered in St. Louis, Missouri. Its Founder, President and CEO is Rodger O. Riney. Scottrade has 500 branch offices around the U.S. It also now has one international branch office in Hong Kong, and it also does offer special services to its Asian-Pacific customers with a Chinese service center staffing Chinese-speaking stockbrokers.

Contents

History

In 1980, Rodger Riney, founder, moved from St. Louis to Scottsdale, Arizona where he and a partner incorporated Scottsdale Securities.[3]

In 1981, Riney returned to St. Louis to open a second branch, but ultimately split apart from his partner in the year 1985 due to conflicting business models. Riney kept the company name, Scottsdale Securities, and lowered the price of commissions to attract more clients. Riney's approach was successful and by 1991 the Scottsdale Securities had a total of 15 branches throughout the US.[3]

Scottrade.com was launched in 1996 (along with Scottrader.com to supply streaming online quotes to clients). Scottrade.com was successful and grew rapidly amidst the dot-com bubble of the 90s.[3]

By 1998, Scottrade.com commissions were as low as $7 per trade (the same price as of November 2011) increasing their customer base.[3]

In 2000, Scottsdale Securities officially renamed to Scottrade due to the success of their online firm.[3]

In 2003, Scottrade launched their Chinese trading site, Chinese.scottrade.com.[3]

In 2004, Scottrade's corporate headquarters were relocated to a new building called Corporate Hill in West St. Louis County.[3]

Scottrade saw substantial growth throughout the 2000s, expanding from 200 branch offices in 2004 to 500 by 2010.[3]

In 2006, Scottrade formed a partnership with the St. Louis Blues NHL team, purchasing the naming rights to the 19,150-seat arena in downtown St. Louis. The arena was renamed the Scottrade Center.[4]

During the late-2000s recession Scottrade did not lay off any of its associates. In 2008 alone, Scottrade hired 1,000 new associates and opened 75 new branches despite the economic turmoil.[3]

Scottrade has won numerous awards, most prominently those of J.D. Power and Associates. See awards section below.[3]

In December 2010, Scottrade opened its 500th branch office. It is located in the West Side of Manhattan.[5]

In 2011, Scottrade launched Scottrade Bank.

Services offered

Scottrade renders both online and branch office services including brokerage services, advisment services, investment education, and offers award-winning online trading platforms, including the Scottrade Trading Web Site, ScottradeELITE Advanced Trading Platform, Scottrader Streaming Quotes, Scottrade OptionsFirst, Scottrade Mobile Application, and Scottrade Mobile Website.[6]

The Scottrade Trading Web Site is Scottrade's standard trading platform with stock screeners; quotes and research; real-time quotes and charting; account monitoring and a knowledge center.[7]

Scottrader Streaming Quotes provides real-time market data and news within a trading platform accessible via the Scottrade Trading Web Site.[8]

ScottradeELITE is an advanced trading platform including news columns from both Comtex and Dow Jones, advanced charts, level two and TotalView quotes, and stock screeners.[9]

OptionsFirst, designed by OptionsHouse in 2008, is a platform allowing complex multi-leg options orders, margin accounts with low minimum deposits, and multiple accounts to the same user. All regular common stock and ETF orders are allowed excluding OTCBB and Pink Sheets.[10]

Scottrade Mobile, launched in 2009, is a trading website accessible from any internet-enabled mobile device.[11]

A Scottrade Mobile Application was released for iPhone, iPad, Android, and Blackberry devices on August 2, 2011.[12]

Awards

In 2011, the firm was ranked No. 12 on Fortune's 14th annual "100 Best Companies to Work For" List, a jump of 15 from last year. This was the firm’s fourth consecutive appearance on the list. "[Scottrade] thrives by going against the grain: Its brokers offer no advice to customers and do not work on commission. Its workplace bucks trends too — no one has ever been laid off, and no office has ever been closed.”[13]

In 2010, the firm was ranked No. 27 on Fortune's 13th annual "100 Best Companies to Work For" List. This was the firm’s third consecutive appearance on the list. "Almost all managers are promoted from the lower ranks, bucked the recession, laying off no one, hiring more than 1,000 new associates, and opening 58 new branches. Benefits include an onsite fitness center and subsidized gym memberships.”[14]

In 2009, Scottrade placed 60th in Fortune's Top "100 Best Companies to Work For" List. According to Fortune, the major contributor to making the 2009 list was Scottrade's ability to shake the turmoil on Wall Street and achieve its 20 year milestone on October 10 of paying quarterly bonuses and never having a layoff. Other factors were a 25% job growth (390 new jobs) and zero employees outside of the U.S.[15]

In 2008–2009, "Scottrade was ranked No. 1 in investor satisfaction with online investing services for the eighth time since 2001, according to J. D. Power and Associates' 2008 Online Investor Satisfaction Study."[16]

In 2008, Fortune announced "that Scottrade, a leading online investment firm, has been ranked 58th on the 11th annual '100 Best Companies to Work For' list." One of the primary reasons for the ranking, according to the Business Wire article, was job growth. Scottrade hired 46% more people in 2007 than 2006, promoted over 500 employees in 2007, and disclosed that over 20% of Scottrade branch managers "began their Scottrade careers as interns."[17]

Recently Scottrade was also selected by Computerworld magazine's 2008 16th best place to work in IT. Many things were considered when rating the work environment for technology professionals such as benefits, diversity, career development, training and retention. In addition to a comprehensive questionnaire regarding company offerings, Computerworld conducted an extensive survey of Scottrade’s IT workers.[18]

In April 2010, Scottrade was reviewed in CEOWORLD Magazine ranked 2nd Best Online Investments Stock Broker.

Competitors

Competitors in the discount brokerage industry include: E*TRADE, TD Ameritrade, Fidelity Investments, Charles Schwab, Firstrade, and TradeKing.

SEC complaint and settlement

In 2008, the Securities and Exchange Commission charged the company with making fraudulent misrepresentations to clients. The company settled the dispute by paying a $950,000 fine.[19]

Footnotes and references

  1. ^ Scottrade -- Financial Services Inc.com. Retrieved January 15, 2011.
  2. ^ Scottrade improves data center speed, reliability and efficiency by standardizing on Dell Dell.com. Retrieved January 15, 2011.
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j About Scottrade | Company History & Timeline Scottrade.com. Retrieved January 10, 2011.
  4. ^ Scottrade Center: Guide to the Scottrade Center - History Scottradecenter.com. Retrieved January 10, 2011.
  5. ^ Scottrade Today Opens Milestone 500th Branch Office Scottrade.com. Retrieved January 10, 2011.
  6. ^ About Scottrade | Company Fact Sheets Scottrade.com. Retrieved January 10, 2011.
  7. ^ Online Trader | Tools for Stock Trading Online Scottrade.com. Retrieved January 10, 2011.
  8. ^ Scottrader Streaming Quotes - Real-Time Stock Quotes and Trading Tool Scottrade.com. Retrieved January 10, 2011.
  9. ^ ScottradeELITE – Advanced Trading Tools for the Active Trader Scottrade.com. Retrieved January 10, 2011.
  10. ^ Scottrade OptionsFirst – Professional Trading Tools for Advanced Online Options Trading Scottrade.com. Retrieved January 10, 2011.
  11. ^ Scottrade Mobile – Research and Trade from Any Internet-Enabled Mobile Device Scottrade.com. Retrieved January 10, 2011.
  12. ^ Mobile Trading Website – Scottrade Mobile Scottrade.com. Retrieved August 3, 2011.
  13. ^ http://finance.yahoo.com/career-work/article/111858/best-companies-to-work-for-2011?mod=career-worklife_balance
  14. ^ http://eon.businesswire.com/news/eon/20100121006074/en
  15. ^ "100 Best Companies to Work For 2009: Scottrade". CNN. http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/bestcompanies/2009/snapshots/60.html. 
  16. ^ "J.D. Power ranks Scottrade No. 1 in investor satisfaction." St. Louis Business Journal 25 OCT 2007
  17. ^ "Scottrade Named to Fortune's``100 Best Companies to Work For List for the First Time" Forbes.com Business Wire - Press Release 22 JAN 2008
  18. ^ "Scottrade named 16th Best Place to Work in IT by Computerworld" Business Wire. June 26, 2008
  19. ^ "SEC Charges Scottrade for Misrepresentations to Customers", U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. June 24, 2008. Accessed September 8, 2010.

External links