Just an fyi you can monitor and place orders using 1 screen without any flipping if you use command center 2.0.
yeah - it looks like you either pay extra for the service OR make an average of 5 trades per month for 3 consecutive months to get it for free.
i had an account with izone ($5 / trade, AMTD subsidiary). same everything as ameritrade, except they don't give you the toll-free phone number. i used it anyhow. ANYHOW...here's a couple reasons not to use them. these have happened in the last year: -> one of the things i do is trade some of the cheapie stocks. so i've got a large position (12k), and want to cover my short. there's 25 or 30k on the offer, i put my buy cover in - let's say at 76c, which is where the offer is - and level 2 pops up with my size (12k) buying at .75. i cancel, it disappears. i do it a couple more times, same thing. other people start lifting the offer, i have to eventually put in an order with limit 5c away (.83) and get filled at like .81 eventually. the process took 30+ minutes of a stock that had volume. when i called and complained, they said on cheapies, AMTD doesn't guarantee your order will be shown. -> placed a market order to fill on an NYSE stock which was active. watched as 40-50k worth of trades were done. i only had a few hundred shares. my order took 5 minutes to be filled, in 100 share increments, about 20-30 seconds apart. one time, they offered me free trades; the other time, since the trade actually went in my direction (!) they said nothing could be done. the site goes down more often than my direct access brokers as well. i moved my money out, and won't go back. the cost of their cheaper trades is more than offset by the periodic problems like these.
I'm pretty sure that command center is free for any size account. You get free level 1 quotes from TDA, you have to pay for level 2 quotes under a certain balance. TDA is fine for a retail brokerage. I like command center more than TWS in some ways. That being said, I am finding that IB is giving me better fills on the average (price improvement) and is much cheaper given the lot sizes I trade.
i use atmd for swing trades and i am very happy with them. Not the lowest cost so i also keep an account with mbtrading which is very basic. amtd has better reporting, tools, and its easy to manage multiiple accounts. as long as you use quote tracker you'll be happy with the interface. IB has to many min trading requirements for me. and I don't like their charts.
Currently, I withdraw any support I may have suggested for TD Ameritrade, as I now suspect the following: A) A lot of the price improvement offers is only for 1/100 of a penny or less--just enough to give them credit for "offering price improvement" but nothing more than that. (I was trading in TOS simulataneously while a relative of mine was trading with TDAmeritrade--the same stock--my price improvement with Thinkorswim was far superior to his. B) When you place large size orders to buy at the bid or sell at the ask, it seems to me TDAmeritrade actively is in violation of frunt-running large block orders from their customers. I was watching Level 2 on TOS while my relative was placing large block orders with TD Ameritrade, and I noticed on 3 occassions that he was conveniently routed to the wrong exchange, and "someone else" got the fill ahead of him. C) I was also noticing for his large size trades that they were "kind enought" to get him fills for 100 shares--just enough to get charged the $10 commissions (and then the rest of the order if it goes through or not becomes a separate issue). He believes that this has been happening to him a lot. Please share your input if you agree or disagree with the above.
I have found that AT does about as well as my other brokers at filling large orders which means I most often get a partial fill and my remaining unfilled balance of the order moves the market away from me. With AT I am stuck with the $10 charge, I then have to cancel the balance of the order and place another order only to repeat with another partial fill. I like IB TWS one line order control at 1/2 cent "all-in" per share, fast cancels, hot keys for fast size and price changes, and easy down loads into my accounting and tax software program. Determining when the share price is changing direction is what is most important for me. The next most important is using the order entry software that can best get me in, get me out, and best fill my stop orders. I have found Ameritrade to not the best for helping to get these things done.