For me, AT only works if I use a big enough time frame, as I do not like to get hacked up. Given that, TOS might be okay to use except that, do they even have the tools/interface to accomplish that? The one thing I like about TD/TOS over IB is their financial position as they are filled with longer term investors and IB is stocked to the gills with "active" traders using lots of margin. How would IB the company hold up during a market meltdown given the amount of leverage that their customers employ? No idea but that is why I do not have more funds than I do at IB. At TOS, you should be able to negotiate the equities commission down to $5, true at least a few years ago. Advantages of IB over TOS for equities: - IB pre-market trading opens at 5AM EST. TOS open at 8AM - why, I do not know but they are unresponsive about changing it. - interfaces for AT and other active trading platforms - margin rate Yesterday, I was trying to take some profits on an ETF at 8:01 EST in the pre-market at TOS and nothing happened on my order submission, even though I was selling below the bid. I cancelled the order and nothing happened. TOS support then told me that it was out of their hands, that I would have to wait until "the market maker" responded to my cancel. I thought that these were electronic markets but maybe the MM was actually some guy on the Northside of Chicago who was snowed in. That left a bad taste and I'll only use them for futures (you used to be able to negotiate that down too) now.
I ran into a similar situation at IB. The rep told me to wait, saying the exchange would "probably" clear the stuck cancel, but possibly not until the end of the day. I'm not going to ask a rep to do something he clearly doesn't want to do, so I just contacted IB support again, got a different rep, and she offered to cancel the order for me, and did.
IB is miles ahead of TD ameritrade when it comes to options and equities trading, speaking from experience.
badnewsbear, could you provide some details in which ways IB or TDA/TOS are better or worse for options/stocks? option analytics? Thx