Important
Charles Schwab acquired TD Ameritrade in 2020. The two firms have since completed full integration. TD Ameritrade no longer accepts new accounts. This review remains online only for historical reference and receives no further updates.
TD Ameritrade ranks among the most recognized brokerage brands in the United States. Its product line spans equities, options, futures, mutual funds, exchange traded funds, bonds along with foreign exchange. Retail investors, day traders in addition to long-term savers open accounts without a minimum deposit. Commissions for listed stock trades settled at zero dollars in 2019. Options contracts cost sixty five cents each. Mutual fund transaction fees range from zero to forty nine dollars, ninety five cents – depending on the fund family. Margin interest rates start at thirteen percent and scale downward for higher debit balances.
The education center contains more than two hundred courses, quizzes next to videos. Topics cover portfolio construction, technical analysis, retirement planning, tax strategy. Content appears in article, podcast, webinar along with live classroom formats. Progress tracking, badges in addition to simulated trading competitions reinforce retention. Advanced traders gravitate to thinkorswim, the flagship platform – it supplies Level II quotes, thirty chart styles, four hundred technical indicators, custom studies next to strategy back testing. A built in programming language, thinkScript, allows users to design proprietary indicators and automated trading signals.
Customer support operates twenty four hours a day, seven days a week, via phone, text, email, Facebook Messenger, Twitter direct message, and Apple Business Chat. Branch offices number more than one hundred seventy five across thirty four states. Representatives answer calls within one minute on average. The website, desktop software, mobile application share identical order types, watchlists, alerts along with chart layouts. Users toggle between light and dark themes, rearrange modules in addition to save multiple workspace profiles.
thinkorswim desktop runs natively on Windows and macOS. A web companion mirrors most features inside a browser. The mobile app supports biometric login, voice commands next to widget-based home screens. Traders stream CNBC, TD Ameritrade Network, and Reuters news. Market data packages include real time quotes for equities, options, futures, indices. PaperMoney, the simulation mode, grants one hundred thousand dollars of virtual currency for practice.
Research offerings originate from twelve third party providers – Credit Suisse, Morningstar, CFRA, Market Edge, TheStreet, Ford Equity Research, Jaywalk Consensus, Research Team, ValuEngine, Argus, S&P Capital IQ along with Vickers. Reports update daily. Screeners cover stocks, options, mutual funds, exchange traded funds, and fixed income. Predefined scans filter for dividend yield, earnings surprise, implied volatility percentile, and social sentiment. A retirement calculator projects portfolio growth under varying contribution rates, market returns in addition to inflation assumptions.
Joe Ricketts founded the company in 1975 under the name First Omaha Securities. The brand evolved through multiple mergers – TD Waterhouse USA in 2006, Scottrade in 2017. Charles Schwab announced the acquisition on November 25, 2019, for twenty six billion dollars in stock. Headquarters remain in Omaha, Nebraska. The combined entity serves twenty eight million brokerage accounts and five trillion dollars in client assets.
Pros
Extensive educational library spanning beginner to advanced topics
thinkorswim platform with professional grade tools
Zero commissions on listed stock trades
Round-the-clock customer support
Cons
No fractional share purchases
No direct cryptocurrency trading
Cash sweep program requires manual enrollment
Post-merger platform roadmap undisclosed
The web platform greets users with a customizable dashboard. Modules display streaming quotes, account balances, profit-and-loss summaries, news headlines, economic calendars next to video briefings. Drag-and-drop functionality reorders panels. Color themes switch between day and night modes. Keyboard shortcuts accelerate navigation. A right click context menu on any symbol opens charts, news, analyst reports, trade tickets.
The mobile application condenses portfolio, watchlist, news along with order status into a single vertical feed. Push notifications alert users to price targets, earnings releases in addition to dividend payments. Swipe gestures archive messages. Touch ID or Face ID secures access. Charts support pinch-to-zoom, crosshairs next to drawing tools. Level II data appears in a collapsible depth-of-market ladder. Option chains sort by expiration, strike, delta, or implied volatility.
Active traders open the Market Monitor to scan for unusual volume, block trades, option flow. The Trade Flash widget highlights rapid price moves across equities, options along with futures. Heat maps visualize sector performance. A correlation matrix compares price relationships between symbols. The Spread Book displays the top one hundred multi leg option strategies ranked by volume and open interest.
Fundamental data pages present trailing-twelve-month revenue, net income, free cash flow in addition to debt ratios. Analyst ratings display consensus price targets, recommendation changes, and earnings revision trends. Dividend history lists ex dates, payment dates next to growth rates. Insider transactions reveal officer and director purchases or sales within the past six months. Institutional ownership percentages update quarterly.
Actual Customer Experience
“I have executed tens of thousands of options contracts through thinkorswim since 2016. The platform loads in under three seconds on my desktop. Custom studies I wrote in thinkScript plot implied volatility skews across expirations. When I call the trade desk at two a.m., a human picks up within thirty seconds. Last month a representative walked me through a complex iron condor adjustment step by step.” – Michael Sacchitello, Chartered Market Technician, Senior Investing & Trading Editor
Order entry on the website begins with a symbol lookup. Autocomplete suggests securities after three keystrokes. A trade ticket defaults to the last used quantity and order type. Drop-down menus select market, limit, stop, stop limit, trailing stop, or trailing-stop-limit. Time-in-force options include day, good-til-canceled, fill-or-kill, immediate-or-cancel, on-the-close. Conditional orders trigger on price, time, or volume thresholds. Bracket orders attach profit targets and stop losses. Review and submit screens display estimated commission, margin impact along with buying power effect.
