Blue Ocean Portfolios is not compensated in any way from the purchase or sale of securities that are in your portfolio.  Therefore, we have no incentive to trade or recommend securities, unless they are truly in your best interest.   We do not participate in any sort of kick backs, revenue sharing, or soft dollar arrangements.  In fact, we have a legal duty to report to you any type of benefit that we may receive as a result of looking after your portfolio.   The majority of our client accounts are held at Scottrade – generally the transaction charge to trade any stock or ETF is a flat $7.00.  Blue Ocean Portfolios does not receive any share of this charge.  We selected Scottrade because we believe that they offer the lowest cost and best value to serve as custodian and broker for our client accounts.