TD Ameritrade Review – The Perfect Online Broker?

I don’t know about the advantages of Ameritrade’s “Think or Swim” to the occasional investor (as opposed to a regular trader), but Schwab has completed an integrated platform that enables intensive research at several locations and among several accounts–usually without a hitch. Ameritrade permits simultaneous comparisons of several mutual funds, but Schwab extends this convenience to as many as 6 different individual stocks of your choosing–in table or horizontal chart formation, and for comparison, it’s a single click to compare a single stock with the other leaders in the sector-industry or with the top-rated stocks in Schwab’s proprietary system.

Also, Schwab’s no fee ETFs and mutual funds are as exciting to follow as watching paint dry, but they’re steady growers that usually come out above the combinations of individual high fliers selected the neophyte investor. Schwab’s own ratings are usually behind the curve, so buying them as A stocks often means they’ll be B and C stocks in the near future. But Schwab now has a handy feature ,”Trade Source,” that gives the investor up-to-the-minute info on the stock’s candidacy for buying at any given time.

Unlike Ameritrade, Schwab does not have Cramer’s “Street” ratings, but if compensates with its own and half a dozen 3rd-party evaluators (including Morningstar). Both brokers offer excellent service, with the consistency among the reps who answer the phone about equal (if you call at off hours, either one may provide a new and “overly-earnest” rep whose indirectness or slowness is merely an apprentice’s defensiveness about what he doesn’t know). I don’t buy often enough for the slight difference in commissions to be a factor. But I do find “curious”, when on Ameritrade, the difficulty of finding a single company’s stock price at market’s close. A position that shows you “up” in a stock’s price, as listed on Yahoo, Wiki, WSJ, etc. at market’s close will, on Ameritrade, frequently show that same stock “down” in your portfolio of holdings–and only a little while after market’s close. I guess the explanation is that Ameritrade’s numbers reflect the “after-market” action of the stock price–which may be a plus to some investors (esp. after-market traders, or those who insist on always having a price that’s in “real time”), but it seems to be needless confusion for the traditional investor.

what is the minimum mutual fund investment amount? Fidelity is 2500 which is why I am thinking of leaving them

I am a long time ETrade account holder, but occasionally I “audition” other institutions because I think ETrade’s fees are high. At TDAmeritrade, Think or Swim is by far the best data provider. It is on par with what is used by institutional professionals (I have been one for over 20 years). HOWEVER, while Think or Swim is first class, in my experience, nothing else at TD Ameritrade is. Recently, EVERY time that I have called with a question, the rep “offers an alternative” rather than directly answering the question asked. This wastes my time. They also have their own unique way of doing things, compared to their competitors, like taking 6 days to clear a deposited cashier’s check (which is as good as cash), or taking 24 hours to post an inwire transfer (should be instantaneous and is at EVERY other financial institution that I have ever dealt with). When I asked for an explanation, I was told “we are a conservative bank”. Since when is “conservative” synonymous with incompetent? Unfortunately Think or Swim can not make up for the lack of knowledge of phone reps or their funds clearance policy. Please note that I am referring to the amount of time that it takes them to post DEPOSITS.

I see most of these robo invester outfits will help manage IRA’s. I am interested in opening and managing a 401K. Do any of them cater to this retirement format?

Guys, BEWARE OF TDAMERITRADE’s 0% INTERNATIONAL fee advertisement. Their debit card DOES NOT work in many countries, at ALL.

I am in Mexico, I recently opened an account with TD Ameritrade in anticipation of working in Mexico. I spent weeks trying to take out money at ATM’s here , in a huge city, not a small town, but kept getting weird errors like Funds not available or can’t communicate with bank. I spoke to 3 different service reps and wasted probably 15 hours of my time.

I finally spoke to Amanda Row , head of banking service. She told me that TD Ameritrade DOES NOT ALLOW ATM transactions in Mexico. I was convinced that this made no sense because the city I am in has 10 million people, that’s bigger than all but about 3 cities in the U.S. And this is a nice city, Maseratis and Mercedes cars, it’s not the middle of Mexico.

So this is weird, I CAN use the card to buy items via “credit” in stores and buy items “online” here but I cannot do ATM transactions transactions but then work for Online and In-person Non-verified Credit card purchases.
And why does no one know about this? Seems like completely False advertising, something that could probably be investigated by the Department of Justice. I have debit cards with Etrade, Bank of America, and Wells Fargo, all have worked fine in Mexico, no problems at all. Even smaller banks.

I wonder in what other countries the TD Ameritrade debit card doesn’t work?
Maybe in Russia and Eastern Europe?

They said Mexico is high on their “fraud model” but that makes no sense, are they just blocking huge countries so they can lower their chargeback rates while advertising that they provide 0% transaction fees? If you have 0 fraud and 0 service in other countries, Sure, charge 0%, the transactions never work, so no need to charge anything.

And honestly, the first few calls to them , the representative was completely unhelpful and had no idea of this rule. When I did finally speak to Amanda Rowe, she said yes, if I wanted to close my account that would be fine, really no attempt to empathize. I was surprised and very disappointed. I was going to move several hundred thousand dollars over to that TD Ameritrade account but now I’m probably going to close the account. I’m just surprised because Etrade goes out of their way to help you with these types of things, as do most of the online brokers and banks.

TD Ameritrade has THE most comprehensive and sophisticated plateform of all (Thinkorswim), which is simply a marvel of technology. From allowing you to backtest trades and strategies to beta weighing or even presenting a clear depiction of your probabilities on any given trades or on your total positions, the software is by far the most advanced in the industry. Paradoxically, TD Ameritrade is slowly becoming in my opinion one of the worst brokers out there. Let me explain through 3 points which I have empirically observed:
1/ Their customer service is getting worse and worse over time. If you want to reach them over the phone, the waiting time on average is between 15-20 mins. When you get someone on the line, it’s like they don’t even listen and are limit rude. It’s like they are conditioned to treat the clients a certain way. When you try to contact them for whatever matter via email, the waiting time before you get a reply (if you ever get one) is around 2 working days. And the replies are meager at best. For the commissions you pay, you would expect a better handle of customer relationship but it is far from being the case.
2/ They won’t have your back, quite the contrary they will charge you for bits and grits for whatever reason they deem necessary.
3/ Their fees aren’t competitive at all regardless of what they claim. Actually they’re one of the most expensive brokers out there. While I understand that building good technology costs money, I also think that customer relationships are equally important. Building good technology shouldn’t be put before good customer relationships because it’s with the customer that they ultimately do business with. What I’m saying is that they should balance things. But the way it’s happening right now is that even some deep discount brokers out there offer better customer support than TD Ameritrade and while they might not be able to fully invest in technology yet, they are slow gaining market shares because ultimately what people want is clarity and transparency in everything, especially when it comes to money.

I am only familiar with their Think or Swim platform. When I teach stock options this is the platform I recommend to my students. I will die using TOS. The best platform hands down.

This review must be out of date, since the last time I looked the Market Motion Detector was nowhere to be found. Too bad, because the tool appeared effective to me. TDAM decided to replace it with other things that I don’t believe are nearly as useful.

At first glance Ameritrade/TOS appears to be a robust trading and analytics platform that’s included with having an account at Ameritrade.

But let me cut right to the chase and say that if you’re an experienced trader who relies on filters and such tools to suss out potential trading opportunities then Ameritrade is absolutely not the platform to use.

Even worse, although they offer a relatively robust menu of such tools, what you eventually find out after dedicating countless hours to learning their archaic programming language is that it doesn’t even matter because they don’t have the bandwidth to provide real time updates on the most basic of indicators..like Average Volume and whatnot.

So, net net, you’ll have a really impressive looking setup but when the bell opens in the AM you’ll see glaring red codes like NAN(Not Available Now) and the ever present “loading”..which won’t resolve until at least 2 hours into the trading day

Can I accurately relay how frustrating this is?

No, I can’t!

And when I spent my valuable time chasing down the person in charge of such functionality he basically told me that “We’re aware of this issue but unfortunately our bandwidth is prioritized toward our algo, black-box and flash trading clients”

And there you have it..

Pass!!

Do you have any suggestions for alternatives to TD Ameritrade? I found out Joe Ricketts (who is on the board of directors for TD and was the founder) contributes to Super PACs that don’t focus on real issues and I am looking to move my money ASAP. Thanks!

Hi Mark,

Thanks for the comment. My WTF fund is slightly under value. Yes I wanted to do updates on trades. My long put with VMW was an OK deal, and just recently bought CSCO. Unfortunately I’ve been sick since Friday, so I’ll been hard to write much. I also haven’t had the time lately for more research in my picks. 🙁 That will soon change.

Hi IJ,

I agree with you that TD Ameritrade looks like one of the best discount brokers at the moment. I think you might have missed the biggest advantage of TD Ameritrade though. They offer commission free ETFs for over 100 funds, and most of them are low cost being through iShares and Vanguard. This lets you build a great, diversified, low-cost portfolio without ever paying any commissions.

https://www.tdameritrade.com/investment-products/etfs.page

I’d like to see another article dealing with upcoming ideas for your WTF fund. I’m not sure how much longer this rally can last, and I think it might be smart to start hedging your portfolio over the next few months. Keep up the good articles!