I will dedicate this post to my recent experience with TD Ameritrade. I must admit TD Ameritrade is an excellent brokerage firm, no doubt about that. However it comes with its own set of problems. Last week I was trying to purchase a stocks of a company (BIEL). I had been following them for a while and I knew it was time for BIEL to get buying signals and hence a great opportunity to make money.

Broker Reviews 2011 Best Commissions and Fees in Stocks, Mutual Funds, ETFs and Options

I logged on to my TD Ameritrade account to place a LIMIT order of few thousand shares of BIEL, but to my surprise I was not allowed to do so. I tried several times only to run into problems every time. Being frustrated I called the customer service, which was very prompt to respond (< 1 min hold  time). I was told that BIEL was put on hold by TD Ameritrade. Arghh!! I lost an opportunity to up my investments by about 15% in a matter of two days!

Did some research and opened an account with Zecco & OptionsHouse. They were right when they said maintain accounts with multiple brokerage firms. You might run into problems with any broker so you got to have a choice! Again by no means I am saying TD Ameritrade is bad! They are probably best among the lot, but you got to have options in the event that I ran into. I would recommend the readers to open accounts with one or more from following list:

1. OptionsHouse is currently running special ads for 100 Free Trades if you open your account before April 30th. On top of that, they are the cheapest as far as the commission rates go (2.95$ per trade).

Get 100 Free Trades with OptionsHouse.com

Read reviews at OptionsHouse Reviews

2. TradeKing is the top Rated Broker by SmartMoney – 4 years running (2006-2009). It also got 4-Star Rated Broker by Barron’s – 12th Annual Survey of Best Browser-Based Online Brokers. All that is available for low flat fees – $4.95 per trade plus $.65 per options contract

Open an account with Trading King – Tradeking

Read reviews at TradeKing Reviews

3. Zecco:Best thing about Zecco is their 10 free trades every month if you make 25 trades in a month. Hence your effective rate actually becomes a lot lower than what they advertise which is 4.5$/trade. Their effective rate comes down to 2.70$ / trade, now who can beat that? See details below:

Trade with Zecco for Free

Read reviews at Zecco Reviews

TD Ameritrade recently announced that they are doubling the referral bonus if you send the referral by March 31, 2010. You can avail on of the following offers:

1. 100$ cash
2. 100$ Gas Card
3. 10 Free Trades at TD Ameritrade

That seems like the highest cash pay out in the brokerage industry. If you need help in referral, please follow the following link or contact TD Ameritrade customer service at 800-669-3900.

TD Ameritrade Refer a Friend Help

Broker Reviews 2011 Best Commissions and Fees in Stocks, Mutual Funds, ETFs and Options

Please note that TD Ameritrade customer service is 24 x 7.  I have been maintaining TD Ameritrade account for quite some time now, just recently started using it. Had some issues before I could get started (did not remember username & password). Called them at 11PM and my account was up and running within couple minutes. Hold time was less than 2 minutes, overall awesome experience!

Anyone looking to open TD Ameritrade account, IM me at info@comparebroker.com and I will hook you up with referral

Happy weekend!