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TD Ameritrade vs TradeKing
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TD Ameritrade vs TradeKing: Trading Fees and Investments 2012
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- Stocks and ETFs: $4.95 (for stocks/etfs priced over $2)
- Options: $4.95 plus $0.65 per contract (for up to 8 contracts) OR $4.95 plus $0.65 per contract (for over 8 contracts)
- Short options valued at 5 cents or less, can be bought to close these positions for no charge (commission free)
- Multiple legs will only be charged one base price of either $4.95 or $8.95, depending on how many total contracts are involved
- Mutual Funds: $9.95
- Bonds: $4.95 per bond ($14.95 minimum)
- Treasuries: $24.95 per transaction
- Certificates of Deposit (CDs): $24.95 per transaction
- Investments: stocks, options, mutual funds, bonds, CDs, treasuries, ETFs
- Minimum to open TradeKing account: $0
- All TradeKing fees
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- Stocks and ETFs: $9.99
- Stocks and ETFs broker assisted: $49.99
- Stocks and ETFs Interactive Voice Response (IVR) Telephone System: $34.99
- Options: $9.99 plus $0.75 per contract
- No-load mutual funds: $49.99
- Treasuries at auction: $25 flat fee
- All other bonds and CMOs, CDs: on a net yield basis
- Futures: $3.50 per contract (inclusive of exchange fees)
- Investment products: stocks, bonds, mutual funds, options, ETFs, bonds, CDs, UITs, futures and forex
- Minimum to open TD Ameritrade account: $0 for cash account, $2,000 for margin account
- All TD Ameritrade fees
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TradeKing vs Ameritrade: Pros
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- Great commissions
- No minimums, maintenance or hidden fees
- Free real time quotes
- Award-winning trading tools
- Best rated customer service
- Low margin rates
- Best online investor community
- Fee-free IRAs
- Extensive educational resources
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- No surcharges on penny stocks, large orders and after-hours trading
- Large and well known company with many local branches
- Two excellent trading platforms (ThinkOrSwim and Trade Architect)
- Practice trading without risking your own money using paperMoney
- See what other traders are doing on myTRADE trader community
- Free IRA accounts
- No maintenance and inactivity fees
- Free streaming quotes, including Level II
- Large selection of independent, third-party research (Standard & Poor's, Morningstar, Jaywalk and TheStreet)
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TradeKing vs Ameritrade: Cons
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- Additional $0.01 per share on the entire order of stocks priced less than $2
- $50 annual inactivity fee if BOTH apply to an account(s):
- Combined account value of the household account(s) is less than $2,500
- No commission-charged trades have been executed in the account(s) during the last 12 months
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- $9.99 commission for stocks/ETFs and $49 commission for mutual funds are high
- The website is sometimes very slow or even down on the high volume days
- High margin rates
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TradeKing vs TD Ameritrade: Comparison Summary
TradeKing (TradeKing Review)
offers much lower commissions on stocks and ETFs than
TD Ameritrade (TD Ameritrade Review):
$5 per trade versus $9.99 at the larger competitor. Mutual funds are $10 per transaction at Tradeking and $50 at TD Ameritrade!
Both companies don't have maintenance, IRA setup and annual IRA fees.
Tradeking is a head above in customer service but it charges inactivity fee in rare instances.
TradeKing is one of the very Best Brokers For New Investors:
it offers lots of learning materials, vibrant and helpful online investor community and no additional charge for broker-assisted trading.
TD Ameritrade offers some of the best trading platforms in the industry - Thinkorswim and Trade Architect - that have all the bells and whistles
one would expect from professional trading software. The firm provides free virtual trading and streaming quotes as well as online trader community.
TD Ameritrade would be our recommendation for an IRA account, Forex and Futures traders as well as for anyone wanting to invest only
with a large, well-known firm. We rated TradeKing as one of the Best Brokerage Houses
and we recommend it to all other investors.
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