TD Ameritrade : Online Broker US Review: 2024
TD Ameritrade: An Introduction
Founded in 1975, US based TD Ameritrade is one of the best brokers for beginners with zero account minimums and free stock/ ETFs trading.
As we know millions of new traders have joined the market during COVID-19 times looking at it as an opportunity to earn money, TD Ameritrade is one of the largest online brokers who is expanding on a similar edge from many years.
It is popular for its seamless mobile trading experience, best educational resources and has a great platform Thinkorswim which offers you simulator trading. Regulated by top-tier US regulators like SEC and FINRA, it is trusted among traders.
TD Ameritrade is currently owned by TD Bank despite the announcement made by Charles Schwab in November’19 that it will acquire Ameritrade. They will definitely become a brokerage giant whenever combined.
TD Ameritrade Features
• TD Ameritrade offers you a wide selection of investment with stocks, bonds, forex, futures, options, cryptocurrencies and funds.
• It provides you an easy access to its platform Thinkorswim in the sense that there is only one platform for both casual and advanced traders. Therefore, you can move to advanced features the moment you want.
• It provides fantastic education and research facilities. You can find live webcasts, analysis and news on all trending topics. As popular for beginners, it offers you from basics like “how to trade stocks” to complex trading guidance.
• Streaming real-time data is unlimited.
What does TD Ameritrade offer?
TD provides you with a wide range of trading and investment choices. Major products offered are:
Stocks: TD Ameritrade offers you all major US trading Markets, including the Nasdaq and NYSE. You can also trade OTC stocks.
ETFs: The best part here is you can trade hundreds of ETFs without any commission whether you buy or sell.
Options: Advanced and experienced traders prefer trading options. They are useful in a volatile market and with leverage, your ability to hedge position gives you more income.
Mutual Funds: Mutual Funds are also a popular choice among traders. You can invest in some of the top mutual funds and TD Ameritrade offers 1,900+ MFs with no transaction fee.
**Futures: **You can trade futures on the Thinkorswim platform. You can diversify your portfolio with 70+ future products virtually 24/6.
Forex: Foreign exchange trading is also a popular way to earn money. TD offers you 75 Forex pairs to trade.
Managed Portfolios: You can also invest in managed portfolios. These portfolios are designed on recommendations from professionals like Morningstar. According to your goal and investment choice, you can choose from 3 options:
• Essential Portfolios
• Selective Portfolios
• Personalised Portfolios
Some other products offered by TD Ameritrade are Margin Trading, Cryptocurrency Trading, Cash Solutions, Bonds, Annuities, IPOs, Dividend Reinvestment and Collateral Lending Program.
TD Ameritrade Commission and Fees
TD Ameritrade has very low and competitive commissions. Also it provides you benefits like interest on idle cash, stock loan programs and margins. Let’s take a look at its pricing:
TD Ameritrade Platform and Trading tools
TD Ameritrade provides you various options to trade from a web browser to desktop app to your mobile. Let's take a look at its platforms:
1. Web trading Platform:
If you are not an active trader, the web trading platform is sufficient for you. The web platform handles all basics you may require and with least complexity. It is considered best for products like stocks and ETFs. So you can log in, research your investments and trade via TD Ameritrade website.
Thinkorswim (desktop) :
Thinkorswim is TD’s flagship platform which is ideal for active and professional traders. It supports customizable views, a huge range of charts, various analytical resources, and has the ability to execute trades in a few clicks within the platform. It is considered best for forex and futures with great technical tools.
3. Trading from Mobile App:
With extensive features, notification bells, and access to real-time data with charts makes mobile trading a complete solution.
TD Ameritrade: Research and Education Tools
As far as research is concerned, TD Ameritrade is a robust broker for these resources. It has great screeners for the products like Stocks, ETFs, Options, Mutual Fund and Fixed Income.
Traders are provided fully customizable 85 pre-defined web based stock screeners, credible screener categories for ETFs by Morningstar, great tools like Option Hacker and Spread Hacker for options, and many compare tools for MFs.
You can also find other general tools which are very much useful like Income Estimator, Social Sentiment Tool, Peer Comparison Tool etc.
TD’s Trade Finder feature that helps you hit potential spreads based on speculations about the market. CFRA, MarketEdge and TradeWise help you generate a lot of ideas.
Coming to the education side of TD Ameritrade, it helps you increase your knowledge by webinars, live videos, and articles. It provides users content in multiple languages according to their skill level using artificial intelligence.
Its network programming targets both advanced and casual traders by featuring 9 hours of live video daily.
Key highlights of TD Ameritrade Account:
• TD Ameritrade is a great platform for beginners.
• It provides $0 account minimums, and free stock, ETF and options trading.
• It provides a great mobile experience.
• The Research and Education part is very strong.
• Regulated by top US regulators, it is safe.
Who can use TD Ameritrade?
TD Ameritrade is suited for both new investors as well as active traders. It is suited for new investors because of low costs and great educational resources. On the other hand, it also suits the requirement of active traders with great chartings, data, and research tools.
TD Ameritrade Review
TD Ameritrade is a low cost broker with multiple research and trading amenities.
New traders learn and grow with simulation and its customized educational resources according to their skills. Also, active and professional traders enjoy its desktop based platform Thinkorswim, having advanced tools like asset screeners and custom indicators.