Sorry - why do they have to bother about clearing and stuff? They do not supply quotes for futures. Therefore their quote feed is close to worthless. You don't need clearing for quotes.
they told me the same thing that they are working on it case i moved my accoung from td to IB but i would prefer TD if they had futures
Having forex is nice, but they really should go to an ecn based forex system. I mean come on TOS forex is just a white label of gain capital/forex.com
Yeah i know it for a fact. I used there program for a while, got awful excutions. I asked who the were using to facilitate there forex trades they said gain capital which is forex.com Just look at the reviews on this site for them and you will get an idea of the trade problems you will have. On another note you still have to transfer money from your equiteis account to your forex account. I know MB trading has a better program for forex and is ecn based.
Download the thinkorswim from TD Ameritrade application. The link is on the TDAmeritrade home page after you login. That application has some futures quotes and charts (at least ESZ9, which is all I've tried).
I am not terribly concerned that they do not provide futures quotes at this time - especially if they cannot execute futures trades. Let TDA take their time and get their backoffice in order - then offer futures/forex trading. If you cannot wait for this - go elsewhere. We don't need to evangelize on everything.
About a week ago when I logged into TDAmeritrade I noticed an option to download the ThinkOrSwim client I don't know if this invitation box appears for everyone when they login or what but I downloaded and installed the ToS client and have been getting free real-time futures & forex quotes, charts, etc since then. Pretty nice. Edit: I see now that is what loufah was talking about... seems to have all the future quotes I want (ES, NQ, YM, TF)
Have been using TOS from TD for a couple of weeks.. Swell! Almost too much info.. I continue to trade futures somewhere else that has really bad charting...
TDA plans on offering Futures and Forex to all their clients during the first quarter of 2010. If you are a TDA client and would like to trade Futures or Forex you will be required to open an account with Penson GHCO through a new entity which TDA is creating. (This means you will have two accounts 1 with TDA for your equities and 1 with the new company created by TDA that will clear Penson GHCO ). Technically you will have your accounts consolidated with 1 company that is TD Ameritrade (only by ownership), but your Futures and Forex account will be held at another firm kind of like if you were trading with ThinkorSwim.