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Compare ChoiceTrade versus Ameritrade on costs, customer service and reliability
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- Stocks and ETFs: $5
- Options: $5 plus $0.55 per contract
- Direct Access trading: $0.005 per share, $1 minimum per trade
- Mutual funds: $25 per trade
- Investment products: stocks, options, mutual funds, ETFs
- Minimum to open account: $0 for cash account, 2,000 for margin account
- All Choicetrade fees
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- Stocks and ETFs: $9.99
- Options: $9.99 plus $0.75 per contract
- No-load mutual funds: $49.99
- Investment products: stocks, bonds, mutual funds, options, ETFs
- Minimum to open account: $1,000 equity is required to open an IRA, and $2,000 to open any non-IRA account
- All TD Ameritrade fees
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- Very low commissions and fees
- No account minimum or inactivity fees
- No extra charges for large-sized orders or stocks below $1
- Direct access trading with lowest commissions
- Free paper/virtual trading
- Investor community
- Very good customer service
- Powerful trading tools
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- No surcharges for penny stocks, large orders and after-hours trading
- Large and well known company with many branches
- No maintenance and inactivity fees
- Large selection of third-party research
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- High mutual fund commissions
- Extended hours stock trades $0.005 per share surcharge
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- $9.99 commission for stocks/ETFs is high, $49 commission for mutual funds is extremely high
- Poor order execution
- The website is sometimes very slow or even down on the most crucial days
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ChoiceTrade or Ameritrade Comparison Summary
Choicetrade
is obviously much better priced company than
TD Ameritrade:
just $5 per trade
for stocks versus $10 in TD Ameritrade and $25 for mutual funds versus $49 in TD Ameritrade.
Both firms don't charge many common fees: no inactivity or maintenance fees, no IRA fees (except for ChoiceTrade's
annual custodial IRA fee of $30).
TD Ameritrade website is unreliable: it sometimes becomes extremely slow on high-volume days or
it takes forever to execute orders. ChoiceTrade not only offers trading from the website but also provides
direct access trading with even lower commissions: $0.005 per share, $1 minimum per trade.
ChoiceTrade offers free paper trading ability which lets customers test and improve their investing
strategies without putting real money at risk. Customer service at the firm works better than at TD Ameritrade.
ChoiceTrade is clearly more appealing brokerage house in just about everything. We strongly recommend it over TD Ameritrade.
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