http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=as7tPSHtD7Sw&refer=home Scottrade...TD Ameritrade...Schwab...etc.. Whats the next story ? And its implications for boutiques ?
I don't trade stocks, but that is an interesting story. BAC is so huge that doing something like this makes perfect sense for them. I think it will attract interest from 'non-active' traders/investors - just move your checking account here and trade for free! Not a bad marketing gimic at all. Then of course, BAC will market all their other services as well to you.
I agree BAC is on their game this time, this will attract affluent clients and also hurt retail brokerage firms as well.
I think that's who they are targetting with this - people with brokerage accounts at Merrill, AG Edwards, etc. What a simple pitch - Mrs. Smith why are you paying for stock trades? Move your money here and it's free! Then they can market their mortgages, cd's, insurances, mutual funds, etc. etc.
From the other BAC post...FWIW. My brother and I have been preaching this for years..."Retail brokers don't need to charge any commissions....all they need/want is the money".....They keep all the interest on short stock money, they can trade against you, they can sell your order flow...and loan your money out for a profit. Now for the good part: This is a Godsend for serious traders....can you imagine 14 million retail traders now pushing to trade more....adding more $$ to the pool for all of us who trade for a living...this is the best thing that has happened for our Firm in years. All you ET'er will be able to make more money, no matter where you trade, IMO. Yea!! Don
AMTD, ET and SCHW should make moves now to compete with no commission trading. I think this is just the beginning. I see ET, AMTD and SCHW, Scottrade, Fidelity etc. commission rates and I think wow thats expensive. They are going to have to make a move very quickly. Im waiting for unlimited free trades. BAC is giving you 30 with a 25k account and ZECCO 40
A smart move for counter-attack to online brokers. Technologies made online brokers grew substantially resulting a huge money flowed out of banks to brokers. Now everything must come to basic, money must flow into the banks as in the past.
The Bloomberg article is incorrect. While not being able to find out anything directly from BAC, here are some of the exceptions. It's 25 k deposits they want. Can't be brokerage assets. No Margin transactions. No options. If somebody finds the whole thing, please post it. That being said, it doesn't add one more trade to any of the discounters. It only hurts them. And Don is right. They don't need it anyway. They take it because they can.