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Scottrade to TD Ameritrade Problems and Any Recommendations for Brokerage

Are there any brokerages that have easy to use trading platform similar to the old Scottrade Elite? That platform was my only favorite thing about Scottrade.

I am one of those who had Scottrade when TDA bought them out. ONLY positives are: 1) they are honoring Scottrade's standard $17 Mutual fund fees (for those funds are not ntf), instead of charging their usual $49 for those; and 2) they have quite a few more NTF for ETF's and MFs than Scottrade. But the NEGATIVES are AWFUL! Their accounting is so terrible that their process to determine the simplest Cash/Money market balances are so unrecognizable that there are at least two separate, distinctly different figures depending upon which tab you're looking at (i.e., positions vs History and Statements vs Balances). Even worse, those SAME FIGURES have been COMPLETELY DIFFERENT depending upon whether you access/print them through Chrome or through Firefox (when printed within a couple minutes of each other at around 11pm or so). Plus their ThinkOrSwim platform makes simple ordering very clunky and cumbersome. They do have a few enhancements but the general layout is fixed, not flexible like Elite was. The Customer Service has been terrible. I am really unhappy with TDA, so will check around to see what else is out there.

Comments

  • edited April 2018
    Hi @CathyG
    Nice to see you here again and that you have positive outcomes with your near past health conditions. Not very many of us here who have not had encounters with health issues, either personal or family involved.

    As to your question: This is a recent thread link regarding your subject question. I don't know that it will resolve any questions, but perhaps worth a quick read. Our house has only used Fidelity, so I have no wisdom to offer about other vendors. At the least, I'll presume, you and yours are away from the U.S. bank thing, eh???
    Cathy.......as to the link below, for whatever reason, the link moves to page 2 of the thread. Click the "1" at the upper right edge of the thread to move to the beginning of the thread.

    https://www.mutualfundobserver.com/discuss/discussion/39094/scottrade-ameritrade-already-regretting

    Take care,
    Catch
  • Thanks so much, Catch! I really appreciate your taking the time to respond. I'll read the link now.
    I do hope you and your family have not had major health problems. It is so upsetting for everyone involved.
    Cathy
    P.S. Re the USB problems. Still there. They invested in private start-up REIT for this multi-million dollar, 100 year old CONSERVATIVE Trust several years ago. That alone forces all quarterly income recipients like me to have to file 2 income tax filings because IDR is up to 2 months behind every year. USB has let 50+ year investments stay, no matter what the 5, 10 or even longer value of those stocks decreases to. The good news is that trust will FINALLY dissolve at the end of 2020. But USB refuses to even give me a maximum time period for payouts from the trust, even if more than a year. One of the problems, they say, is the IDR investment (surprise). Anyway, sorry to vent. I shouldn't complain about such a huge boost in income, no matter what the problems are.
  • edited April 2018
    Hi Cathy good to hear from you and you are doing good... We use boa and Merrill edge for trading stocks ETFs (very low free trades if you have 75k total in accts preferred rewards) very happy with results and superior customer service for preferred client . Their boa credit card give you almost 2% monthly cash back and 5% gas cash back 3% groceries is one of best credit card around if you qualify for preferred platinum program . 80%of our buying business is done through preferred credit card.

    Schwab us good for buying bond products and customers are also good with reasonable fees. Very easy to roll over to any of those accounts....

    We have both along with Vanguard. Vanguard has so many bonds funds etf but trading fees high compared to other firms. Unless u buy Vanguard etf funds free trading fees. I did opened sep-ira in Vanguard and 401k in boa Merrill edge
  • I need to get off my butt and get out of TD Ameritrade. Frankly, my distrust of TDA is so high I'm worried they will botch my IRA rollovers.

    Trying to find some time to read up on fine print, then pull the trigger.
  • @Vintage Freak: Just Asked for the broker in the Green Room, his name is Ivan, and everything will be alright
    Regards,
    Ted:)
  • Morning @VintageFreak
    I didn't look back through the thread for your new vendor choice; but if you are planning to rollover IRA's to vendor "X", this new vendor may be able to initiate the transaction.
    Will this eliminate all possible errors from the Ameritrade end, not 100%; but one would hope the transaction to be straight forward. Knowing you are aware, one would always verify the policy/procedures from the AmeriTrade side, as to how they need to have this process move forward.
    Best to you with this.
    Catch
  • There is something to be said about you get what you pay for. I hardy hear any praise consistently with TD Ameritrade. We use TD Waterhouse long time ago before it merged with Ameritrade. Ever since we use Vanguard and Fidelity as our main brokerages and they have served us well. We had Fidelity as our 401(K) administor and their web service is excellent. Vanguard is more basic but equally functional.

    One can trade Vangurad's ETF for free while iShares ETFs can be traded for free at Fidelity. We are investors and not a high volume traders, so this point is less important to us. With respect to transaction fee funds, it is $49 at Fidelity and $20 at Vanguard. Pimco institutional funds have $25K minimum at Vanguard and $1M at Fidelity, and we have taken advantage on several Pimco fund. One can purchase more at TF using automatic investment feature on Fidelity for $5. This cannot be done online at Vanguard and it can be done through the phone with a representative for $2 fee with 2 transactions minimum.

    At the end we prioritized our need and what the brokerages offer. We use automatic investment through Vanguard and directly with MF to simplify our life. Looking over the last several years ETF and stock trading are quite low for us. My advise is to find way to keep life simple.
  • Our account moved from Scottrade to TD Ameritrade.
    The positives have been:
    TF continues at $17.
    Automatic investment on TF at zero cost ($0) – to set it up you need to phone.
    Pimco institutional funds have zero ($0) minimum
  • I am still undecided on TD Ameritrade. One major positive is besides the $17 on transaction fee funds purchases, they are also only charging me $17 on the sale side of such funds.
  • Comparing the previous Scotrade services with the current TD Ameritrade, two positives have been:
    Better Bank Services for transferring out funds
    Transactions now are posted in the next business day – instead of as previously in two businesses days.
  • Also don't ever use Interactive Broker, very bad service, placing a trade/buying bonds/ trading there is much more difficult than learning learning/getting PhD in Theoretical Physics. had to give up the account after several months of use. waiting for services there usually takes 20-30 mins at least and every investor that sign up is there to fend themselves
  • @catch22 Haven't decided where I want to move my IRAs and taxable account. Might just leave my IRA alone, but move the taxable.

    Ameritrade (and ETrade) have absolutely ZERO credibility with me and there are no limits to how they can F' up. In any case there are no other options for moving taxable other than what I already have Vanguard, Schwab, Fidelity and TIAA. I could go with any of them but leaning toward Schwab.

  • After the last 2 weeks, have to agree with you on ETrade. They messed up the Pimco D share conversion two different ways, while the conversions at Fidelity and Schwab were seamless. I think I need to slowly start transitioning away from ETrade.
  • Hi Ted! Thanks for the video. Gave me a nice smile - and another reason to maybe leave TDA, since they approved that ad.
  • Thanks for your follow-up, Sven. Very interesting. I am TRYING to continue to be an Investor instead of a trader. But I hadn't changed any investments in a couple of years, so need to re-balance and re-evaluate many. Also true during this political disaster and volatile market which will likely continue to be as bad - or even possibly far worse - for us and the market. So the fees do have some importance. On the plus side for TDA, there do have many NTF MF's and ETFs.

    But, one of my TOP PRIORITIES, is a good, user-friendly trading platform for stocks and etf's (like Scottrades great ELITE platform). I can work with TDA's but their buy/sell process is APPALLINGLY BAD! You have to go through several forms, and your bid on the first form is frequently CHANGED when you get to the NEXT form (i.e., sells become buys, # of shares change and, just as bad, they change the ACCOUNT you are buying/selling to from the one you originally had open. So you really have to be careful to review ALL the info CAREFULLY before you hit 'confirm and send'.

    But I digress. You are absolutely right. Keeping it as simple as you can will make the rest of your life a lot easier (assuming you even HAVE a rest of your life during this market).
  • Thanks, Guilhermes. I had not noticed the zero fee on PIMCO funds. All my old PIMCO MF were in Bond-Type funds, and it looks like ALMOST ALL of those are NOT looking good for the near future. I'm still checking, but if you know of an especially good one, I'd love to hear it. I still have THOPX, CMF and a couple closed end funds, along with the sizable bonds in VTMFX. But I've never invested in closed end funds before, so those in minimum amounts. Cathy
  • Thanks, Junkster. It never occurred to me that a brokerage would charge any different whether you buy or sell - unless there was a penalty for early sales.
  • Thanks JohnN. I've seen their ads but they clearly seem directed to the "Buy this book for free" category - or at least the day traders only.
  • Vintage. I noticed your @Catch22 at the beginning of your response. Is that the way to specify which person you are responding to?
  • Thanks Carew388. I used to be at Schwab. At least SOME of their people had actually heard of MUTUAL FUNDS, which doesn't seem to be true of several of the TDA agents I've spoken with so far. It seems that MUTUAL FUNDS for ANY brokerage are put in the back room and only available M-F 9-5.
  • edited April 2018
    @CathyG- "Is that the way to specify which person you are responding to? "
    Yes. @ followed by the exact user name.

    Edit: Note that you can include as many addressees as desired in a post. eg: @CathyG, @Old_Joe, etc. These addressees need not be in any special order or place in the post, although they are frequently placed at the beginning. For example, if you were using one post to reply to three different people on three different subjects, it would look something like this (using a few excerpts from your posts above):

    Thanks @JohnN. I've seen their ads but they clearly seem directed to the "Buy this book for free" category - or at least the day traders only.

    @Junkster. Thanks, it never occurred to me that a brokerage would charge any different whether you buy or sell - unless there was a penalty for early sales.

    @Carew388- Thanks, I used to be at Schwab. At least SOME of their people had actually heard of MUTUAL FUNDS, which doesn't seem to be true of several of the TDA agents I've spoken with so far.

  • Thanks for taking the time to answer, @Old_Joe! That helps. Would be easier, though, if it was like it was in the "old" days when you could just respond directly below each person's response.
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