Do your research. Spend time looking up fees and costs, investments, tools, and resources available. What is their customer service like, and do they have an investing app? Open an account online. You can open a TD Ameritrade brokerage account online. If you need to transfer funds from another brokerage, you can do so online. Once your account is open and funded, you can trade that same day. TD Ameritrade has over physical locations across the U.
Should you have any questions, around-the-clock help is available via chat or phone. There is no minimum to open an account with TD Ameritrade. And regardless of which brokerage you use, there is a level of risk when you invest. Your securities could lose value, and in turn, you could lose money.
There are no commission fees for online trades of stocks, bonds, and ETFs that are listed on a U. You can't customize anything, stage orders, or trade directly from the chart.
Moreover, while there's a simple trade ticket for equities, the order entry process for options is complicated. More importantly, Robinhood has been the subject of scrutiny and litigation due to recurring platform outages and trade restrictions.
TDA offers a more robust and reliable trading experience. Casual traders will find everything they need on its web-based trading platform.
Thinkorswim is fully customizable, modern-looking, and offers a full suite of analysis tools. There's also a trading simulator that lets you create and test studies using the thinkScript programming language. Overall, TDA has a solid lead in terms of features and functionality. While Robinhood offers a web-based platform, it's a mobile-first company. The app targets investors who want a simple trading experience without any bells or whistles.
It's extremely easy to use, but you won't find many of the same tools that larger brokers offer. Still, you can trade all available asset classes and access streaming real-time quotes and charts. Both are robust and offer a great deal of functionality, including charting and watchlists.
Streaming real-time data is included, and you can trade the same asset classes on mobile as on the other platforms. Robinhood has a 4. Overall, we found that Robinhood's app is more straightforward and fun to use, while TDA's app is superior in features and functionality. Robinhood supports a narrow range of asset classes. TD Ameritrade offers more products, including mutual funds, bonds, futures, forex, and a Robo-advisory service.
Unless you're looking for crypto, TDA takes the win here. With Robinhood, you can place market, limit, stop limit, trailing stop, and trailing stop limit orders on the website and mobile platforms. It doesn't support conditional orders on either platform. The default cost basis is first-in-first-out FIFO , but you can request to change that. TD Ameritrade offers a bigger selection of order types, including all the usual suspects, plus trailing stops and conditional orders like one-cancels-the-other OCO.
There are no restrictions on order types on the mobile platform, and you can stage orders for later entry on all platforms. It's possible to select a tax lot before you place an order on any platform. Robinhood doesn't publish its trading statistics, so it's hard to rank its payment for order flow PFOF numbers. While the industry standard is to report PFOF on a per-share basis, Robinhood uses a per-dollar basis.
The company doesn't disclose its price improvement statistics either. Nevertheless, its target customers tend to trade small quantities, so price improvement may not be a big concern. Users who are looking for a margin account may be better served by a brokerage with lower rates. TD Ameritrade charges zero trading commissions for online purchases of stocks and exchange-traded funds ETFs —just like the rest of its major competitors.
The commissions and fees the brokerage does charge are at rates broadly comparable to other services. TD Ameritrade offers 13, mutual funds, including nearly 4, no-load, no-transaction-fee funds.
This selection of funds compares favorably with competing online brokers. TD Ameritrade charges nearly the highest margin rates of the online brokers we surveyed. The lowest margin rates 6. In comparison, low-fee champ Interactive Brokers charges a flat rate of 2. In terms of service fees, TD Ameritrade comes in at about average. There are no inactivity fees or paper confirmation statement fees. TD Ameritrade is paid for order flow, a practice in which brokerages receive compensation for processing transactions through particular market makers at exchanges.
In the past, this has resulted in some customers not getting the best price for their investments, like if a brokerage opts for the market maker that compensates them the most versus the one that has the best price for their customer.
From basic to specialty accounts, TD Ameritrade customers will find everything they need, including:. TD Ameritrade offers a simple web-based trading interface with a corresponding mobile app as well as the highly regarded thinkorswim trading platform, available in desktop, web-based and mobile app iterations.
The web platform allows users to trade stocks, bonds, ETFs, mutual funds and options. The thinkorswim trading platform was designed for investment professionals, and it shows.
This is where TD Ameritrade customers get access to more advanced asset classes, such as futures trading, forex and futures options, in addition to all of the asset classes available on the web platform. Customizable features include:. The platform offers thinkScript, a simple programming language that lets users build their own analysis tools tailored to their specifications.
This straightforward scripting language lets you take market data and build studies, special watch lists and charts as well as share them with other users. The only real drawback we could find with thinkorswim is the lack of a short locator.
This could be a problem for investors who are intent on short trading stocks. Charting tools include:. TD Ameritrade provides any type of order that an investor might need.
In addition to basic orders, advanced traders will appreciate the conditional and durations orders. Order types include:. With advanced order routing technology, most market orders are filled at a better price than the current quote.
As noted above, TD Ameritrade receives payment for order flow—direct routing of trades is not available. Investors seeking managed accounts have several options to choose from. Larger balances get more sophisticated features—and higher fees—with Selective Portfolios and Personalized Portfolios. Investors tethered to their phones will appreciate the slate of TD Ameritrade mobile apps.
The TD Ameritrade Mobile and thinkorswim apps are on a par with the desktop platform and received a near perfect ranking on our survey. The thinkorswim app is ideal for serious traders who need to keep on top of their options and futures trading or day trades. Advanced investors will appreciate the conditional orders and multi-leg options trades. What could be improved.
Margin rates TD Ameritrade's margin rates can be easily beat by several trading platforms. Alternatives to consider. Read Robinhood Review. Read Interactive Brokers Review. Buying mutual funds and ETFs. Total mutual funds 11, No-load, no-transaction-fee funds NTF 1, Fees you should know about. ATM fee rebate: Many investors like having a debit card linked to their brokerage account, but don't like the costs associated with it.
Reimbursements are unlimited, so whether you use your card daily or once a decade, you won't pay an ATM fee. Paper statement fee: Brokers don't like sending documents by snail mail. Opt-in to receive statements electronically, and you can forget this fee even exists in the first place. Fees for paper statements have become an industry-wide phenomenon in one form or another.
TD Ameritrade margin rates. Some research tools worth mentioning include: ETF screener: This tool can be really helpful for finding ETFs that fit your investment needs. With a few clicks, investors can drill down to find ETFs that match specific criteria such as funds that fit Morningstar's large-cap value category and have a below-average expense ratio, for example.
Fixed income reports: TD Ameritrade customers get access to bond reports by Moody's, adding an informed view for people who want to know more about individual bonds and funds. Customer support and service. This brokerage is right for you if:. You value customer service and a local branch office.
TD Ameritrade has one of the largest branch networks among discount brokers, making it a good pick for people who want in-person customer service. You use mutual funds and ETFs. With more than 1, no-load, no-transaction-fee mutual funds and no commissions to buy ETFs, TD Ameritrade is an attractive choice for investors who use funds in their portfolios.
Research is important to you. You don't use margin as a core part of your investment strategy. TD Ameritrade's margin rates are higher most than other brokers, and carrying a large amount of margin can be costly. About the Author.
Blue Twitter Icon Share this website with Twitter. Email Icon Share this website with email. Back to The Motley Fool.
0コメント