How come nobody talks about ameritrade on this forum? I would like to get some opinions. I've been using them for 2 years and been pretty happy since I do size with my trading.
I have had an account with them for 7 years. I opened the account for trading size in stocks. When I am hitting the bid ask, the order fills seem to be as fast and good as for any of my other accounts. I do not use Ameritrade for orders of less than about 3000 shares due to the commission cost. The cash, when not in use, sweeps into a Reserve Fund. I would not want Ameritrade for my only broker (that tells what I think of them from an overall standpoint). If I could have only one account, it would not be Ameritrade. It would be IB.
i used to when i traded stocks. i ditched them because i noticed a pattern in my slippage ( i keep very extensive records on every trade). this pattern was too coincidental to be some freak random event. it was clear i was being screwed, though i have no hard proof of this, other than their records where they admit to selling order flow to knight (as most brokers do). knight have more sec cases than louis vitton. perhaps it was knight that was screwing me. either way i was screwed and screwed hard. damn hard. almost as hard as that irish builder i met saturday night.....
I do not place stock orders with Ameritrade where I am providing liquidity (I think I would draw the short straw almost every time, sort of like FredBloggs described in his post above). As long as I am taking the existing liquidity, the orders seem to fill immediately.