TD Ameritrade Pricing

• Stocks/ETFs: $9.99 per trade
• Options: $9.99 + $0.75 per contract
• Mutual funds: $49.99 per transaction for no-load mutual funds
• Treasuries at auction: $25
• Futures: $3.50 per contract, inclusive of exchange fees

TD Ameritrade Important Fees and Surcharges

• Extended hours surcharge: $0
• Large order surcharge: $0
• Penny stocks surcharge: $0
• IRA setup fee: $0
• Annual IRA fee: $0
• Maintenance fee: $0
• Inactivity fee: $0

TD Ameritrade Advantages

• Online user community
• Free streaming quotes
• Local branches
• Free automatic reinvestment of dividends
• Fee-free retirement accounts
• Flat-rate commissions, no hidden fees
• Virtual trading

TD Ameritrade Disadvantages

• Expensive commissions on all asset classes

TD Ameritrade Account Types

• Standard accounts:
• Individual
• Joint Tenants
• Tenants in Common
• Community Property
• Tenants by the Entireties
• Guardianship

• Education Savings Accounts:
• 529
• Coverdell ESA
• UGMA/UTMA

• Retirement Accounts:
• Traditional IRA
• Roth IRA
• Rollover IRA
• SEP IRA
• SIMPLE IRA

• Specialty Investing Accounts:
• Trust
• Limited Partnership
• Partnership
• Investment Club
• LLC
• Sole Proprietorship
• Corporate
• Non-Incorporated Organization
• Pension or Profit Plan for Small Business

TD Ameritrade Review

TD Ameritrade attracts many customers with its competitive promotions and retains them by providing a rich, multi-tiered trading environment. We have opened more than one account to exploit TD Ameritrade’s cash rewards and initial periods for free trades. Even after the promotional period expired, we remained clients because we were hooked on its trading platforms and excellent customer service.

TD Ameritrade offers clients access to an increasingly large set of securities, funds, and derivatives. This brokerage allows us to trade futures, options, currencies, options, exchange-traded funds, mutual funds, exchange-traded notes, and plain old stocks and bonds. The breath of coverage for each security is impressive: for example, there are 25 currencies can be traded and 50 futures contracts are available for trading.

The brokerage also provides alternatives ways to purchase and hold investments. One interesting purchase program is TD Ameritrade’s commission free ETF investing program which allows investors to purchase a (relatively) short list of over 100 exchange-traded funds. In this program commissions are waived as long as the ETF is held for more than 30 days. This brokerage also allows investors to create individual retirement accounts (IRA), to enroll in 529 plans for college savings, or to create Coverdell Education Savings Accounts.

We are impressed by TD Ameritrade’s trading interface because it is really three different trading platforms made accessible by the same online discount broker. The website’s landing page functions as a straightforward, easy to use trading platform.

Beyond that, TD Ameritrade offers trading and investment reconnaissance through its Trade Architect features. This brokerage sets itself apart by offering a third option for users: its thinkorswim trading environment. We are impressed by these three good platforms because other brokers typically only offer only a no-frills ordering webpage and at most a level-II quotes trading program.

TD Ameritrade’s Trade Architect tool helps organize information so that trades can be researched, and executed easily. Trade Architect is especially useful for constructing positions that consist of multiple options or options and long or short positions.

In addition to visualizing investments with multiple components, Trade Architect includes a calendar that displays trading events including earnings releases, splits, and dividend dates.

As TD Ameritrade clients we are also able to download the thinkorswim trading application. This program provides a deeper view into market structure and visualizes activity in the futures market on one page.

To be honest, we could live without many of the tools in TD Ameritrade’s three platforms. Three trading environments are redundant, and if you are like us you will quickly determine which platform you are most comfortable with and then mostly ignore the other two. What’s more, many of the research features are available for free from online sources, though this broker manages to present them in a more convenient and complete format. The events calendar is a good example of a research tool that is an improvement upon free resources. However, not all features are so useful. For example, streaming CNBC newsfeeds are available through multiple platforms and are at best distracting.

Beyond TD Ameritrade’s exceptional trading environment, this broker’s promotions are compelling for long term investors. The company has run promotions with tiered rewards to entice investors to fund accounts with $25,000 or more in assets. We have reaped $300 payment for funding an account with $100,000 and $100 for funding an account with $25,000 in the past. These bonuses are treated like interest income, and are taxable as regular income if your accounts are not tax advantaged. Regardless, the after-tax proceeds of these bonuses are effectively free money for investors. In a world where 1% interest in CDs and savings accounts is attractive, these bonuses are valuable because they add 0.3% or 0.4% to the yield of a portfolio without taking on additional risk. Investors who are looking to initiate many positions for the long term should also consider TD Ameritrade’s promotional free trades to save money on commissions. For example, a recent promotion offered 60 days of free trades for stocks, exchange-traded funds, and options. (There is often a high cap on the number of free trades like 150 during the promotional period, so read the fine print.) This can amount to over one thousand dollars of savings.

The generosity of these promotions can more than make up for TD Ameritrade’s $9.99 stock trading commission. Yes, this is not the cheapest commission available to traders. However, investors who open a promotional account with enough money to earn a $100 or $300 bonus are literally paid to create their trading positions on the platform, assuming they finish trading within the promotional period. This can be invaluable, especially if the investor is looking to create a well-diversified portfolio consisting of individual stocks and options. All in all, TD Ameritrade offers an excellent service that investors should use to their advantage. Investors should wait for a promotion, prepare a shopping list of securities they would like to trade, and create an account to seize free trades and a cash bonus using their choice of three trading platforms.

TD Ameritrade Promotion Offer