TD Ameritrade : Your Experience

[rsingh6675]

Have you used TD Ameritrade for stock trading? What is your experience?
Please advise.
Thanks

 

[Fedup]

I have Scottrade and it was purchased by TDAmeritrade. It's kind of awful. I don't like it. I think I like the Scottrade system better.

 

[redduck]

I have Scottrade and it was purchased by TDAmeritrade. It's kind of awful. I don't like it. I think I like the Scottrade system better.

I'm not quite understanding. Have you already moved over to TDAmeritrade and if so, what is kind of awful about it?

 

[Johanson]

I'm not quite understanding. Have you already moved over to TDAmeritrade and if so, what is kind of awful about it?

That's my question too. I have seen no changes to my Scottrade account.

 

[Fedup]

I'm not quite understanding. Have you already moved over to TDAmeritrade and if so, what is kind of awful about it?

I have both. TDAmeritrade for HSA. Scottrade for regular account. But I think somehow they are changing the Scottrade software slowly to be similar to TD Ameritrade. I remember it used to be different.

 

[Blue Collar Guy]

Have you used TD Ameritrade for stock trading? What is your experience?
Please advise.
Thanks

As usual i have a story. i had Waterhouse securities in the early 80's. They some how became td ameritrade. I tried to get in a trade by phone around 1985. I was told i had to set up an account, put money in it etc. they couldnt buy the stock for me and send me the bill. I drove to 40 or 44 wall street or wherever they were at the time. I go with a check. I enter their offices on what ever floor it was, and i tell the receptionist i need to buy a stock.I need to get this trade in. It was a hot tip from the brother in law that i like. Some kid comes over and tells me that this is highly irregular and not how its done. Well guess what , this is how it was done that day. Boom i have an account and 300 shares of this hot tip maybe $6000 total. I get the newspaper the next day , and its up a few cents. The next day after, (day 2 of ownership), its listed in the top box area right after the recap. Its in bold print next to its symbol in the look up column. Seems that if something in those days went up 5 or 10 % or down it would be in bold print. The thing was up around 27 %. I call my brother in law for advice. I speak with my sister and she says he will call me when he returns after work tonight. She wasn't aware of any stock trades lately but with the kids always screaming and such she might have missed this information. He calls me that night and says what stock? I tell him, he says oh that was a tip from one of my customers , did u buy it? I said i did, he says he knows nothing about the stock, BOOM next day i sell. Seems to me that with all the kids crying i didnt get the whole story either. I kept the money in there and would dabble from time to time. Its where i bought my NYMT. They have i think 10 dollar trades. I paid about 60 for this last trade because i didnt know how to do it on line, the guy walked me thru it. I like them. BTW their office on Wall Street back in the 1980's was stunning lol. Man i miss the fun i used to have.

 

[LOL!]

I have TDAmeritrade accounts. I buy ETFs nowadays, but 20 years ago would buy stocks. They are a fine broker. I'm not sure what you mean by "experience with them" though. I submit orders, they get filled. I go the office if I want same day action on paperwork. What else?

I have other brokers, but do most of my trades at TDAmeritrade because that's where our 401(k)s are located.

 

[Dan32]

Switched 2 months ago

I switched from 5 accounts from Scottrade to TDAmeritrade ~ 3 months ago. Prompted to do the switch due to a few minor annoyances at Scottrade. Figured if my accounts would eventually switch anyway, why not take the cash incentive to switch now. Not sure if the incentive would apply after the buyout. So far I've been happy with TDA. Multiple trading platforms which you may or may not like. Interestingly enough as the funds were being moved to TDA, Scottrade called me and offered incentives to stop the move?? Seems like they are still in competition.

 

[exnavynuke]

I had Scottrade and ThinkorSwim years ago. I dumped Scottrade in favor of ToS because their platform was significantly better for "trading", though Scottrade offered more research/education for "investing". ToS was bought by TDAmeritrade not too long after, but TDA kept the ToS platform. Now I have the education/research of TDA (which I'd say is slightly better than what Scottrade had when I was with them ~8-9 years ago) as well as the great trading platform of ToS, AND all the commission free ETFs available through TDAmeritrade (including many Vanguard funds etc). The only way I could be happier is if they had lower trade fees, but since I almost exclusively utilize their commission free ETFs these days, it's not a big deal to me.

 

[sengsational]

TD Ameritrade for HSA, so I'm there not by choice.

They charged $10 to purchase an ETF (of MY choice, not theirs), so I've seen cheaper.

Not a huge fan of their web site, nor their statement. Probably my least favorite statement layout.

 

[LOL!]

TD Ameritrade for HSA, so I'm there not by choice.

They charged $10 to purchase an ETF (of MY choice, not theirs), so I've seen cheaper.

I wonder if that was ages ago under their old pricing structure.

I actually don't look at the statements, though I keep year-end PDF copies with my tax return info.

 

[Gumby]

I have TDAmeritrade accounts. I buy ETFs nowadays, but 20 years ago would buy stocks. They are a fine broker. I'm not sure what you mean by "experience with them" though. I submit orders, they get filled. I go the office if I want same day action on paperwork. What else?

I have other brokers, but do most of my trades at TDAmeritrade because that's where our 401(k)s are located.

Same here, but I have never been to the office. I have an account. I buy and sell stocks. They execute the orders. Never had a problem.

 

[Fedup]

I wonder if that was ages ago under their old pricing structure.

I actually don't look at the statements, though I keep year-end PDF copies with my tax return info.

You still have to hold the ETF for 30 days. I made a mistake of trading out too soon and I was charged, I forgot the charge, maybe $19.99. But I called and complained and they gave me free trades to compensate for it.

 

[MooreBonds]

I have both my HSA, some retirement accounts (self-managed, by choice) and taxable. I am pleased with them. Ages ago I had an E-trade account, but long since closed. My only other reference point is my account w/ Vanguard (lol.....search the forum for "Vanguard customer service", "lack of customer service", "customer service horror" or some variant...you probably get the drift).

The site layout is somewhat intuitive and somewhat well laid out. If you have more than 1 account linked, you can view all positions in all accounts (and all balances) in just one window, or separate by account. WHen viewing all account positions in one, there is a column identifying which account the holding is in (and you can create the aliases for the accounts whatever names you want).

One thing I don't like: they recently changed their 'rapid entry quote window" such that when you enter a symbol to get a quote in the little popup window, and then click on the "trade" area right underneath the quote line, it prefills to "buy" for the trade selector, with the symbol you just got a quote on. More than once I had to double check and almost didn't catch myself in time to change it to "sell", because it pre-filled to "buy". IN the past, if you didn't choose "buy or sell" in the drop down field, when you hit "preview order", it would give you an error flag for not selecting "buy/sell"...but now that it prefills "buy" as a default, it will keep that unless you manually change it to "sell". Could be a big nasty accidental fat-finger trade someday (or would that be a digital fat-finger mistake?).

 

[jim584672]

The commission free ETFs must be held for 30 days or you get a $19.99 charge. You can turn this feature off if you want. They just lowered the commissions to $6.95 a trade.

Compared to Vanguard they are light years ahead on the platforms and service.

 

[Danmar]

As usual i have a story. i had Waterhouse securities in the early 80's. They some how became td ameritrade.

So Larry Waterhouse (a great guy) started Waterhouse Securities in the early 70's. He was one of the first Discount Brokerages, along with Schwab,Muriel Siebert, Scotttrade, Ameritrade, etc. In 1997 TD Bank (Canadian Bank) bought Waterhouse for about $750 million. They renamed the business TD Waterhouse. In 2005 they merged this business with Ameritrade Securities (founded by Joe Ricketts). TD got about 42% of the combined equity and the Ricketts about 20%. New name is TD Ameritrade. They recently closed the Scottrade deal with TD Bank taking the Scottrade Bank to be merged with TD Bank USA. Maybe not as interesting as your story but......

 

[Blue Collar Guy]

So Larry Waterhouse (a great guy) started Waterhouse Securities in the early 70's. He was one of the first Discount Brokerages, along with Schwab,Muriel Siebert, Scotttrade, Ameritrade, etc. In 1997 TD Bank (Canadian Bank) bought Waterhouse for about $750 million. They renamed the business TD Waterhouse. In 2005 they merged this business with Ameritrade Securities (founded by Joe Ricketts). TD got about 42% of the combined equity and the Ricketts about 20%. New name is a TD Ameritrade. They recently closed the Scottrade deal with TD Bank taking the Scottrade Bank to be merged with TD Bank USA. Maybe not as interesting as your story but......

I like it, ty .

 

[sengsational]

I wonder if that was ages ago under their old pricing structure.

The 9.99 iShares ETF buy was four months ago. Might be a pricing structure agreed to by HSA outfit.

 

[LOL!]

The 9.99 iShares ETF buy was four months ago. Might be a pricing structure agreed to by HSA outfit.

$9.99 was the default price a few months ago for folks who did not sign up for the no-commission ETF deal or who bought something not on the no-commission list. For instance, DGS (from WisdomTree) is something I own that is not on the no-commission list, so I use another broker for that ETF where it is no-commission.

Not every iShare ETF is on the no-commission list and many people did not know that they had to explicitly sign-up for the no-commission deal, too.

 

[Scuba]

I have some assets with Fidelity & some with TDA. I prefer Fidelity's website, statement layout, and lower trading costs. Will likely consolidate at some point.