In late April new commissions and margin rates will be coming. Currently, Ameritrade commissions are $10.99 for market or limit orders from 1 share to 1,000,000+ shares. Nice and simple. TD Waterhouse has a multi-level fee structure that generally charges from $9.95 to $11.95 for market orders and $3.00 additional for limit orders from 1 share to 2,500 shares. After 2,500 shares the commission rate doubles. e.g. 5,000 shares limit order would be $11.95 + $3.00 + $25.00 or $39.95. So for instance, it is actually less expensive to give them more work to perform by executing two separate orders. For penny stock players these commissions are unworkable. So what's in store for Ameritrade clients? Are the fees going thru the roof now to match those at TD Waterhouse? Throwing out the penny stock players along the way? What about margin rates? Ameritrade is about 8.25% which for fully secured and liquid debt seems high to me. I don't know what TD Waterhouse margin rates are.
I heard TD waterhouse was implementing a new system --tier one and tier two --just last March 20 -- I have to find out the details.
The last I heard, the TD waterhouse fee schedule will be in place for a bit yet for the TD cutomers. Ameritrade doesn't change. I'd bet that they adopt Ameritrade's schedule, especially given the Izone schedule. Amerivest see the following link: TD waterhouse banking operations shut down after the deal went through, ameritrade being the stronger partner. Ameritrade was just buying brokerage clients, not banking operations. http://www.ameritrade.com/tdainfocenter/pdfs/tda.pdf
It's a pity that TD Waterhouse Canada commissions aren't like those of their US counterpart. At least they are starting down the path to becoming more competitive...