If you’re planning to open an Individual Retirement Account, be sure to check out everything TD Ameritrade
offers. The top brokerage company for IRA has a lot of resources that retirement savers will find appealing.
IRAs Offered: Traditional IRA, Roth IRA, Rollover IRA, SEP IRA, SIMPLE IRA, Individual 401k (for small business)
IRA Setup Fee: $0
IRA Annual Fee: $0
IRA Termination Fee: $0
Stocks and ETFs: $0
TD Ameritrade IRA Promotion
$0 commissions + transfer fee reimbursement.
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TD Ameritrade Services
TD Ameritrade offers a large range of Individual Retirement Accounts. Besides Roth and Traditional accounts, the brokerage firm has Rollover, Minor, SIMPLE, and SEP accounts. Besides IRAs, there are several other retirement account types available with the company, including solo 401(k) plans, money purchase pension plans, tax-exempt trusts, and profit-sharing plans.
TD Ameritrade charges
no on-going fees for its retirement accounts.
There are no minimum balance requirements or inactivity charges. IRAs and other retirement accounts
at TD Ameritrade get the broker’s same commission schedule as regular accounts. This means
$0 commissions on online trades of stocks and ETFs on regular exchanges.
IRAs and other accounts at TD Ameritrade can buy and sell equities, ETFs, mutual funds, bonds, closed-end funds, and futures. Some IRA types are not eligible for futures trading, although some are. Forex trading is possible, although the IRA must maintain at least $25,000 in assets.
TD Ameritrade charges no commissions on forex trades, although the broker does make money off of the bid-ask spread. There are over 70 currency pairs available. Trades of futures contracts cost $2.25 per contract, per side.
An IRA at TD Ameritrade can only be opened as a self-directed account. There is no investment-advisory service.
Best IRA Firm Award
Full Review
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TD Ameritrade IRA Promotion
$0 commissions + transfer fee reimbursement.
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IRAs Offered: Traditional IRA, Roth IRA, OneStop Rollover IRA, Simple IRA, SEP IRA, Beneficiary IRA, Complete IRA, and Minor IRA
IRA Setup Fee: $0
IRA Annual Fee: $0
IRA Termination Fee: $0
E*Trade Services
E*Trade does not charge a fee to close an IRA. However, it does have some IRA fees that the other two brokerage houses don’t have, like a $25 fee for a distribution before age 59½. E*Trade has no on-going IRA fees like maintenance or low-balance charges. Like the other two firms in this survey, an E*Trade IRA can be opened with any deposit amount or no deposit at all.
Like Ally Invest, E*Trade has some investment-advisory programs that an IRA can utilize. First is a robo program called Core Portfolios. It comes with a 0.30% annual fee and a $500 minimum deposit. Approximately 1% of an account is kept in cash, while the other 99% is invested in ETFs with low expense ratios.
Investment-advisory customers who want to invest in bonds and mutual funds can opt for the broker’s traditional service. There are higher fees and minimums, but clients get a human financial advisor and tailored investment advice. In all cases, the fee is less than 1% per annum.
Self-directed IRA customers have access to a hybrid system called Prebuilt Portfolios. E*Trade’s financial advisors have created baskets of mutual funds and ETFs that clients can browse through and select. They come in a variety of risk levels and deliver access to both foreign and domestic stocks (via the funds). An ETF portfolio has a $2,500 minimum investment amount, while the mutual fund portfolio has a $500 minimum.
IRA clients who would rather skip all the investment advice can instead make their own decisions with stocks, options, bonds, futures, and funds. Futures can only be traded in Roth and Traditional accounts. Other IRA types are ineligible for futures trading.
Speaking of IRA types, E*Trade does a good job of delivering a large selection of them. Besides Traditional and Roth, the brokerage house offers Beneficiary, Minor, Complete, SEP, and SIMPLE accounts. Beyond IRAs, there are 401(k) accounts (both Roth and Traditional are available), profit-sharing plans, and investment-only accounts for businesses.
A self-directed retirement account at E*Trade has the same pricing schedule that taxable self-directed accounts have. This means $0 commissions on most online trades of stocks and ETFs. Over-the-counter instruments have a $6.95 commission.
Mutual funds with a transaction fee cost $19.99 per trade, although E*Trade has thousands of funds with no load and no transaction fee.
Futures cost $1.50 per contract, per side, although crypto contracts are $2.50. Bonds cost $1 each, with a $10 minimum per trade. Options are 65¢ each.
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E*Trade IRA Promotion
Get zero commission on stock and ETF trades.
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IRAs Offered: Traditional IRA, Roth IRA, Rollover IRA, Simple IRA, SEP IRA, Coverdell Education Plan
IRA Setup Fee: $0
IRA Annual Fee: $0
IRA Termination Fee: $25
Stocks and ETFs: $0
Ally Invest Services
Ally Invest does have managed accounts, and IRAs can be opened in managed form. This service obviously creates an advantage over TD Ameritrade. But Ally Invest has a much smaller list of retirement account choices. For IRAs, the brokerage house has Roth, Traditional, and Rollover accounts. There are no other choices. Furthermore, Ally Invest doesn’t have the other retirement accounts that TD Ameritrade offers, such as 401(k) accounts.
A second advantage that Ally Invest has over TD Ameritrade is its relationship with Ally Bank.
This opens up the possibility of opening an FDIC-insured IRA with the banking arm of the company.
Currently, Ally Bank has
IRA CDs that pay interest rates as high as 3%
(actual earned rate of interest varies based on term and opening deposit). Ally Bank offers Roth,
Traditional, and SEP accounts. An IRA with Ally Bank can easily be linked to an IRA or other brokerage account on the Ally website.
Investors who demand more than just bank deposits will find more with a self-directed IRA at Ally Invest. Available products include stocks, options, funds (mutual, closed-ended, and exchange-traded), and bonds. Although Ally Invest does offer forex trading, it’s not possible to trade currencies inside an IRA.
Managed accounts have several advantages, but they have a smaller selection of investment vehicles. These are ETFs and SMAs (separately managed accounts). The company’s wealth management service offers both, while the robo program trades only ETFs.
Ally Invest starts its pricing for both self-directed and robo IRAs at a very low management fee: 0.00%. This unbeatable price is valid for automated accounts that agree to keep a 30% cash position. The cash position can be reduced to 2% in exchange for an annual fee of 0.30%. Either setup requires a $100 deposit. A self-directed IRA has no minimum deposit requirement.
For a traditional wealth management package, Ally Invest requires a very severe $100,000. But wealth management IRAs get a lot of services that robo and self-directed IRAs don’t get. These perks include human advisors, financial plans, and regular webinars. The cost ranges from 0.85% to 0.75% per year.
Any IRA at Ally Invest will have a $25 closeout fee, something that a TD Ameritrade IRA doesn’t
have. Like TD Ameritrade, an Ally Invest IRA qualifies for
zero commissions on most trades of stocks and ETFs.
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Ally Invest IRA Promotion
$0 commissions + $75 transfer fee credit at Ally Invest.
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TD Ameritrade
| Investments | Commissions |
|---|
| Stocks and ETFs | $0 |
| Stocks and ETFs broker assisted | $25 |
| No-load mutual funds | $49.99 to buy, $0 to sell |
| Treasuries at auction | $25 |
| All other bonds and CMOs, CDs | on a net yield basis |
| Futures | $2.25 per contract plus exchange & regulatory fees |
| Forex | Non-commission currency pairs trade in increments of 10,000 units (and do not contain a "#" symbol suffix). There are no additional fees or charges. |
| Investments | stocks, mutual funds, ETFs, bonds, CDs, UITs, futures, and forex |
| TD Ameritrade minimum deposit to open account | $0 |
| Fees | TD Ameritrade fees |
E*Trade
| Product | Price |
|---|
| Stocks and ETFs | $0 |
| Stocks and ETFs broker assisted | $5 |
| Options | $0.65 per contract ($0.50 if making 30+ trades per quarter) |
| Mutual funds | $19.99 |
| Futures contracts | $1.50 per contract, per side + fees |
| Fixed Income | markup or markdown and any transaction fee will be included in the price quoted |
| Bonds | $1 per bond (minimum $10, maximum $250) for online secondary market trades. Includes Agency bonds, Corporate bonds, Municipal bonds, Brokered CDs, Pass-thrus, CMOs, Asset Backed Securities. |
| Investments | stocks, bonds, mutual funds, futures, fixed income, options, ETFs |
| Etrade minimum deposit to open account | $0 for a non-retirement account, $0 for a retirement account, $2,000 for a margin account |
| Fees | Etrade fees |
Ally Invest
| Investments | Commissions |
|---|
| Stocks and ETFs | $0 |
| Options | $0.50 per contract |
| Mutual funds | $9.95 |
| Bonds | $1 per bond with $10 minimum, $250 maximum |
| Treasuries | commission-free |
| Certificates of Deposit (CDs) | $24.95 |
| Investments | stocks, options, mutual funds, bonds, CDs, forex, treasuries, ETFs |
| Ally Invest minimum deposit to open account | $0 for cash account, $2,000 for margin account |
| Fees | Ally Invest fees |
| Promotion link |
Ally Invest promotions
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Now it’s time to look at the retirement investing tools that these best brokers for IRA offer.
Retirement savers who choose TD Ameritrade will find a large selection of IRA materials on the broker’s website. Not surprisingly, these will be found under the Planning & Retirement tab. It’s at the top of the site in the horizontal main menu. Links under this tab include:
- Planning & Retirement Overview
- Goal Planning
- Income Estimator
- Investment Approach
- Retirement
- College
- Small Business
Clicking through these links, we found several useful tools, including one that projects a stream of cash generated from a portfolio of securities. The widget can use a watchlist or actual positions. Quantity of shares must be entered, and then the income estimator will project in graphical format the projected monthly payouts over the next 12 months with an annual total that also estimates dividend yield.
Another useful retirement resource is goal planning. TD Ameritrade offers a free goal-planning consultation for its self-directed customers. A human financial advisor will take information about assets, net worth, time horizon, etc., and create a financial plan using sophisticated forecasting tools.
And then there are checklists in pdf format that can be downloaded. These cover a wide range of issues, from developing a monthly budget to building an emergency fund to evaluating a Social Security payout.
Moving from the Planning & Retirement tab to the Education tab in the top menu, we find another treasure trove of learning materials. Some of these cover general investing topics that taxable accounts will benefit from, while others are retirement focused. This latter group will be found under the Portfolio Management & Retirement section.
During our research in this section, we found 148 individual pieces covering a wide variety of retirement topics in multiple formats, including articles, playlists, videos, webcasts, and more. Examples we found include:
- Simple Steps for a Retirement Portfolio (a 3-hour course)
- How to Invest in Your 50s (a 5:46 video)
- Investing Basics: Planning for Retirement (a 4:32 video)
- Social Security: Will You be Taxed? Ideas to Help Minimize the Impact (article)
- Required Minimum Distributions (RMDs) (a 4:00 video)
Although TD Ameritrade doesn’t offer the advisory services that the other two brokers here offer, it does have a large selection of target-date mutual funds that self-directed IRA owners could benefit from. Using the broker’s mutual fund screener (found under the Research & Ideas tab), we were able to locate 246 target-date mutual funds. Almost 200 of these have no load and no transaction fee.
Target-date mutual funds are funds that invest with a target date as a goal. The target date is the date retirement is expected to begin. As the target data approaches, and afterwards in some cases, the fund gradually switches from stocks to bonds, which means the fund becomes more conservative and less volatile.
Self-directed IRA clients at Ally Invest also have a large selection of target-date funds. In fact, we found over a thousand of them using the broker’s fund screener. It is located under the Quotes & Research tab.
Once the fund screener is loaded, target-date funds can be selected by adding Fund Classification to a search. To do this, click on Add Additional Criteria in the top of the search engine. Fund Classification appears under Profile.
Under Fund Classification, the target-date selections appear as Mixed-Asset Target Funds. Select all of these or just the year you’re interested in. A search can be sorted by a wide number of criteria, including Lipper ratings, R-squared, historical performance, and expense ratio. Trade links are shown in the search results, and clicking on a ticker symbol or fund name generates the fund’s profile.
Although Ally Invest has more target-date mutual funds than TD Ameritrade, it doesn’t quite offer the same level of retirement tools or education. The Ally site has an Education tab in the top menu that provides some learning materials for general investing and wealth management. These resources cover topics that IRA account holders will benefit from. Articles relevant to IRAs will be found under the Wealth sub-tab. Examples of articles we found include:
- Goal Setting vs. Advising: How Our Wealth Advisors Give You Both
- Wealth Redefined — Why You Should Think About Wealth Management, No Matter Your Financial Situation
- 4 Alternative Investment Options that Can Grow Your Wealth
- Building a Foundation for Generational Wealth Today
Under the Life tab, there is a Retirement sub-tab. This section hosts a lot of retirement articles, including these examples:
- What Is an IRA & How Does It Work?
- Saving for a Future of Freedom: 4 Ways to Fund Your IRA
- A Millennial’s Guide to Retirement Planning
- IRA vs. 401(k): How to Make the Most of Your Retirement Savings
Obviously, these resources are more targeted towards IRAs and retirement saving. Articles underneath any tab can be shared via Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and e-mail. Articles tend to be rather brief and do not always provide an in-depth discussion of the topic, which is one downside here.
E*Trade also has some educational articles (including some that have videos) on its site that IRA
owners will find helpful. Under the Markets & Ideas tab in the top website, there are several
links that provide information on a variety of topics. These include required minimum distributions, using Social Security during retirement, and consolidating retirement accounts.
The Markets & Ideas tab also has an Insights sub-tab that has tiles for a variety of subjects, including both retirement planning and tax planning. The retirement planning tile produces a page with a retirement calculator. It generates a graph that shows a projected value at retirement based on a few variables, such as current age, age at retirement, and rate of return. Assuming an 8% annual rate of return, annual savings of $6,000, and a retirement age of 70, the calculator returned an ending value of $2.5 million. Not bad.
The tax planning tile produces information on issues that long-term investors will want to be reminded about: topics like home ownership deductions and the child tax credit.
One last resource we really like underneath the Markets & Ideas tab is Planning Tools. This subsection has a Plan for Retirement hub. This area has some really important information on building a nest egg, including the power of compounding and expenses that retirees often face.
The really great resource on the Plan for Retirement page is a calculator that takes a lot of details from the IRA owner and then estimates if they’re on track for retirement or not. Inputs include:
- IRA and other retirement plan balances
- Age at retirement
- Life expectancy
- Tax bracket
- Annual income
- Expected cost of living
- Projected Social Security payments
The retirement planning tool will automatically use balances from E*Trade accounts, which is a really convenient feature. However, it does not automatically incorporate projected future contributions. To add expected future contributions, you have to click on the account’s name and add these contributions on a separate page.
Besides these really nice free planning tools, E*Trade has several IRA management tools on both its website and mobile app. Contributions are automatically tracked by E*Trade’s software, so it’s really easy to go back and review previous years. To do this, hover over the Accounts tab on the website and select Transactions. On the next page, check out the Retirement Summary tab. This column will display all sorts of possible IRA transactions, such as contributions, recharacterizations, distributions, and rollovers. If you have more than one retirement account, such as a 401(k), make sure you select the account you want data on. There is a drop-down menu at the top of the screen to do this.
A Transactions tab sits to the left of the Retirement Summary tab. It will display the current year’s contributions total and distributions total.
To get those contributions into the IRA, E*Trade’s website and mobile app both have user-friendly transfer forms. Either form displays contributions year to date (and previous years’ contributions). Between January 1 and April 15, there is a drop-down menu to select a contribution year. On the Transfer page on the website, there is also information about rolling over an old employer’s retirement plan into an E*Trade IRA. These important resources are all under the Transfer link at the top of the website.
Updated on 6/10/2022.
Chad Morris is a financial writer with more than 20 years experience
as both an English teacher and an avid trader. When he isn’t writing
expert content for Brokerage-Review.com, Chad can usually be found
managing his portfolio or building a new home computer.
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