TD Ameritrade Review 2018 – The Perfect Online Broker?

TD Ameritrade offers no true money market fund. The settlement acount pays 1/10 of 1 percent interest. The money market funds they do sell have high transactions fees. The only way to get an actual almost market rate on cash is to buy CD’s. at what is 10 to 20 basis points under market rates. The CD’s typically have a start date of a week in advance of the order date so your money sits in the microscopic interest settlement account for a good few days before it begins earning interest again. as they will only allow for online orders from settled not pending transacations.

9/10? I must be on a different Ameritrade platform. I was on Scottrade, but since they’ve sold all of us down the river, I will be looking for a new place. The Ameritrade platform is a complete and utter joke.

I’m not sure which TD Ameritrade you were speaking with, but their customer service was pretty bad. The first 2 people I spoke with had no idea what they were talking about the and second kid was very rude. And most of the research you referenced is not free. Also their fees are worse than others and others have good research too. I was a Scottrade transfer and I transferred elsewhere already. They also can’t give you a feed for closing prices. They roll right into after hours with no option to look at the actual close. Very strange. There were multiple other problems too. Like when you receive a dividend you don’t know who it’s from. It’s posted as a journal entry. Not very helpful. And the process of dividends into the cash account is pretty antiquated. Same with interest. And when you go to Transfer out you need the TD account number which is buried in your personal information section. The Scottrade number won’t work. I was really disappointed with these folks.

Today, I was trying to make some trades and could not purchase the fund I wanted. During my call with an agent to resolve the issue, I was informed that my business relationship with TD Ameritrade had be terminated.

When asked why, I was told no information was available as to the reason. Canceling my ability to purchase funds without notice and then refusing to disclose why this action was taken is exceptionally unprofessional and discourteous.

I have never been contacted for any problem and there is a significant balance that I will now be moving to another online service.

I would not recommend TD Ameritrade

With Scottrade what you see is what you get when it come to a trade. With the now TDameritrade you get lower than what you see. The BID(sell) price you get is lower and the Ask(buy) price is higher. Plus you pay the Fee for the trade on top of that. The the real trade price is not the $6.95 that they advertise but a Sky’s the Limit Price! At the now but later Scottrade if the Stock Trade price was $5.55 you got that at the Stockmarket $5.55 sell or buy price, you just pay the fee. TDAmeritrade is a RIPP OFF!! Too bad Scottrade is no longer with us!

I think Ameritrade bought out Scottrade so they could “capture the customer and stop losing people to Scottrade. I spent 2 days with no access to my data during the conversion. After I finally got access on Sunday night I stayed up for hours and finally realized that Scottrade was far superior to Ameritrade and I was being screwed by the merger. I lost the income manager which I had used since the second day it was installed. It tracks dividend income for the month over up to 2 years. Now I have to get the data by hand and enter it into a spreadsheet. I have no control over how stock data is presented now. Ameritrade must have bought out Scottrade to stop the loss of customers to a far superior platform. Maybe its time to sell everything and get out. I feel Ameritrade will help me lose money and charge me more to do it. If I could get Scottrade back I would do it in a minute.

I use the TOS platform exclusively for option trading and it is an incredible tool. It takes a lot of time to learn how to use it and, even after a year, I still think I have only scratched the surface. I am committing myself to 2 hours a day on-line learning from tutorials. I came from OptionsHouse (now E-Trade – still have an account with them) with these funds. The service has been fine the couple of times I needed to call. One rep was even proactive in offering the chance for more training on TOS. He told me that there isn’t one person on earth who knows all 100% of the platform’s capabilities.

The technology has worked fine on my MAC. No issues downloading it and no issues since. The only downside is that the commissions are not the cheapest. At Optionshouse, there would be no commission on a buy to close Put if the price was 10 cents or less. That can save a lot of money. Not sure if they still offer that at E-trade. Have one written calls on that platform.

Overall, a happy customer. 9 out of 10.

I am seriously considering moving my portfolio to a different company. Here are my reasons:

1. TD Ameritrade’s web or IOS app are simply not highly available. They are prone to frequent logon and timeout issues if you have multiple linked accounts. Every time the issue is reported, they try to sell Think or Swim platform. I don’t need it, I do not have the time or the need to learn it. I contend, if they cannot solve simple problem, how a complex product would be more reliable.

2. Every try comparing balances between the Web and IOS platform. One platform may show a security gaining 18% while the other may show losses on a daily gain view. This is what I received in response to a strongly worded letter:

“As you mention in your letter, the thinkorswim platform and the TD Ameritrade Trader app were both available at that time to place trades. Please understand, while TD Ameritrade invests considerably in our technology infrastructure, technology is fallible, and will fail at times. As such, our firm does not guarantee the availability of any one of our systems at any given time. This is, in part, why we offer several different media for our clients to conduct their account activity.”

3. They are just deaf or simply incompetent to listen to the repeated complaints. It may very well be that there is a disconnect between they way customers use their platform and their perception of it.

The bottom line is that if the trading system is not reliable, it simply cannot be worthy of being the best.

Take your business elsewhere. I was switching from Scottrade because their platform was not compatible with my MAC. TDAmeritrade had my funds and I was told I would have access by 10am. They lied! Supervisor told me that he did not know when my funds would be available. My experience dealing with TDAmeritrade was terrible their customer service is sub par at best!

Not the best.

As mentioned in several of the posts, their funds availability policy is dismal … 3 days for ACH transfers is ridiculous, which I believe to be a violation a NACHA rules. TDA says that is only applicable to banks whereas I believe it is applicable to all ODFIs and RDFIs.

I got tagged as a PDT, deposited $3k to bring balance to over $25k then they stated that the PDT restriction will not be lifted until the day after the deposit.

The only reason to use TDA is because of the TOS platform.

However, I have found lately that my fill prices are not what is being displayed on the trade screen but typically a penny or so different. Make sure to use limit orders at ALL times.

And btw, regarding the 3 day hold on ACH transfers, next time you have absolutely nothing to do, take a look at the financial statements of TDA Holding on edgar.gov. Net interest income was 31% of their total revenue … no wonder there is a 3 day hold.

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?

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!