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We rate Ameritrade
Michael Abramowitz
When we first started examining the online brokerage
industry, Ameritrade looked to be a contender for our "Best Pick."
Their $8 commissions thrilled us, and we thought they might be "the
one" we would fall in love with when all the stock trading was history.
But our match made in Internet heaven turned out to
be hell. We were bumped off their system five times when we submitted
trades. After a couple of rejections, we tried a different computer
to make sure it wasn't an internal problem. Sure enough, it happened
again.
We contacted customer service to voice our frustration.
They only told us that they were not encountering any problems and
to try again. Meanwhile, we lost money on buy orders that rose in
price and sell orders that dropped in price.
Not exactly the right way to kick off a beautiful
relationship.
However, we gave Ameritrade another chance, and on
our second day of trading, we encountered zero problems. But the
damage was already done. We felt jilted.
For a comparison chart of the online brokerages we
reviewed, click
here.
| Ameritrade:
The bottom line |
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Minimum balance to open an account
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$2,000
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Days to receive confirmation on funding
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14
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Commission on market orders
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$8
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Commission on limit orders
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$13
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Current balance immediately available after trade
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No
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Number of times system rejected trade order
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5
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Free real time quotes
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Limited number from quote bank
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Ameritrade also disappointed us with a poor layout
of their Web site. A novice investor may not understand that "equity
order" means stock trade. Plus the navigation is at the bottom of
the screen instead of at the top or on the side. The word "confusing"
comes to mind.
We were also dismayed in Ameritrade's tortoise-like
response. It took 14 days to confirm that it had received the proper
minimum opening balance for our account. But it was not alone --
Fidelity Investments and Charles Schwab took the same amount of
time. All of the sites were blown away by Datek's six days to confirm
that our account was open.
| Ameritrade
report card |
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Performance
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D
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Commissions
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A+
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Ease of use
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D
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Funding requirements/days to fund account
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C
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Customer Service
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C
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Intangibles
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C
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Overall
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C
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Another source of frustration is that Ameritrade doesn't
give us a current balance immediately after trading. We scratch
our head wondering why it can't subtract the amount we traded plus
commissions and give us a real-time balance.
Overall, Ameritrade made a lackluster showing and
earned an overall grade of "C." We felt like we were left at the
altar.
-- Posted: Oct. 1, 1999
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