TradeKing’s celebrating its 3rd birthday this month – and what a great year it was. We’re proud of every initiative we pushed forward this year to make investing at TradeKing faster, smarter, easier or just plain more enjoyable. Here’s our roundup of milestones reached in 2008 (and you’re welcome to check out how far we’ve come since our 2nd birthday and our 1st):

Better Community

Our TK Community grows bigger, more active and livelier by the minute, it seems – so we’re committed to supporting its success and expanding its usefulness for all our members. Check out this roundup of community features after our last big redesign – and hold onto your hats for more innovation on this front soon.

We kicked off our TK All-Stars blog, featuring “color commentary” from our own Brian Overby and Nicole Wachs as well as plenty of guest commentators. We’ve offered constructive critiques on real trades by TK clients and are now expanding the blog into more areas – like Doc Maher’s recent series on fundamental analysis, for one. Look for even juicier developments in this blog, coming soon.

Rolling out the TK Leaderboard this year was a big win for us – this feature publishes the performance stats over several timeframes for every TK client who makes that info available. It’s a great way to boost transparency and help traders better know whom they’re dealing with as they navigate the Community.

Better Education

We launched an educational webinar series, featuring TK’s own Nicole Wachs and Brian Overby as well as plenty of guest commentators.

If you haven’t already done so, check out Options TV, our new partnership with Options News Network. It’s a great, fun, informative way to get your fill of options news and education online.

Better Tools and Trading

We launched our Fixed Income offering this year, and the timing couldn’t have been better as investors sought a bit more stability with a renewed interest in bonds and CDs. In fact, interest has been so keen we recently expanded our online Fixed Income capabilities, so it’s even easier and more automated to find the right bond or CD to meet your needs.

For you Auto Trade fans, we expanded our roster of participating newsletters, bringing the total to 16.

TradeKing launched an unprecedented line of defense against hackers, phishers and other online scams in 2008. Our super- secure login acts, in essence, as a five-layer shield against online criminals. TradeKing was the first online brokerage to introduce this level of account security.

Maxit Tax Manager should make your life easier come April – lots of great capabilities there, especially geared for traders and investors’ needs.

Same great rankings!

We earned four stars from Barron’s again this year – our second year in a row.

Smart Money ranked TK #1 in service this year. In fact, we earned the maximum five stars for both trading tools and customer service and were the ONLY broker to score that perfect 5 for service, making us best in the business in that category.

Kiplinger’s gave us higher marks than heavyweights E*TRADE and TD Ameritrade and awarded us with a quote I love so much, you might see it tattooed on my forehead one day: “You work too hard for your money to tolerate crummy customer service....In this category, TradeKing reigns." Amen to that!

THANK YOU!

Perhaps the best news came from all of you: we grew by leaps and bounds in 2008. TradeKing has now attracted more than 130,000 client accounts, a 116% increase over 2007. In fact, more than 12,800 clients opened new accounts with us in October alone, a 300 percent increase over October 2007. It’s gratifying to know that the good word about TradeKing is spreading. We’re proud you chose us as your broker – and we look forward to knocking your socks off with great tools, service, education and community in 2009!

[image: No More Number 3 by swanksalot on flickr]
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Follow the markets at the TradeKing Blog, learn options strategies from the Options Guy, or check out expert commentary on real client trades at TK All-Stars.

(c) TradeKing, Member FINRA, ISE and SIPC. http://www.tradeking.com

Congratulations Don and the rest of the TK gang!

It's hard to believe that it has been about 2 years for me with TK, but it has. With my hat in hand, I am looking forward to all the improvements and additions coming down the pipe and here's to an awesome 4th year to come!

Congrats, been here 2 years and have checked out a lot of places.  Haven't found better yet.  You fit my style and that is what counts.  By the way, your customer service traders treated me great.  This is after having written an email that was less than cordial.  I was trying to make a joke and realized after reading it again that if wasn't in the Christmas spirit.  They remained totally professional, helpful, and more than knowledgeable.  Merry Christmas.  From a very happy customer.

TK is a whole lot better than ING/Sharebuilder.  Only thing left to deal with them is my brokerage statements when I liquidated my positions over there back in January and moved my money over here.

Well happy birthday TradeKing. I have only been here since september, but I have to say I have been impressed by TK and everyone here. And I see you made a few changes to the blog reporting/share. Very nice.

Started in August of this year. Three months prior to that time had invested $10,000 with one of the best? brokerage firms in US. Cost $800 for them to lose over $7 thousand dollars in just 3 months. So - - - figured I should not have to pay money to lose money. Decided to try trading myself.

Researched "on line" trading. After some time and reading what was said about TRADE King, set up an account. Smart move, Most of the account value is down, but having not cashed any investments, have just a loss of value, but the investments are still paying returns.

Not even knowing most of the terms and symbol meanings-and how to invest the Trade King staff always came through with clear and simple explanations.
The community comment section is always helpful. The new classes will certainly be of assistance.

When the computer programs would not work, the computer crew solved the problems. O/yes did make enough money to recoup some of the loss.

Have told others about TRADE KING and some have looked into establishing accounts.

To the staff and all of you that have posted information and comments, a hearty thank you and successful new year.

Really nice result Don (on accounts growth). Congratulation for you and your team!

You guys are very innovative (with all the cool trading functionality and community) and also provide good customer service.

Sidarta

congrats from us don happy holiday

Well done indeed!
Happy Holidays to TK team and TK users

Happy birthday TK. I'm loving you more every day.

Congratulations Trade King on your 3rd birthday. I started my account with you guys on March 2006. Your the best and  I am looking forward to many years to come.

Wow, looks like Christmas came early this year! I couldn't ask for a nicer gift than these comments, seriously. We're so glad you're enjoying your TradeKing experience - here's to more (and better) in 2009!

Its hard to believe it has been 3 years. I am proud of you and your team.It does't seem that long ago that your founding Fathers were sitting in our kitchen in Haddonfield NJ putting the finishing touches on your Business Plan. Great job!