Today, let's review a popular online brokerage. We're going to do a deep dive into TD Ameritrade.
We'll talk about the pros, the cons, the price, the features, and then some. And hopefully
by the end of this video, you'll have a clear understanding of what TD Ameritrade has to
offer, and more importantly, you'll get a better understanding of whether or not TD
Ameritrade is a brokerage that makes sense for you. My name is Dash, and this is Mind
Over Finance. And for the sake of the YouTube algorithm, please massage that like button.
Founded back in 1975, TD Ameritrade was one of the larger traditional brick and mortar
brokerages that has now become one of the larger online brokerages, and they offer a
full range of retail investment products. So everything from stocks to bonds, ETFs to
mutual funds, and everything in between.
In addition to a full range of investment products, they also offer a full range of
investment accounts. So you have your standard brokerage accounts, your margin accounts,
your retirement accounts like traditional and Roth IRAs, and more. Here's what I like
about TD Ameritrade. Pro number one, it's easy to use. Their dashboard makes logical
visual sense. When you're just getting started, investing can be overwhelming, but the way
TD Ameritrade's platform is laid out, it makes it easy for even a complete beginner to get
a grasp on investing basics. The platform makes it several clicks easy to buy and sell
stock, open a new type of account, and more.
Pro number two, deeper research. I'm not a professional stock analyst or anything, but
over the last year, I've really been trying to do a better job of understanding the companies
behind the stock prices, behind the ticker symbols. Why are these companies the way they
are? Why are some companies successful? Why are some companies unsuccessful? And what
are some of the accounting numbers that signal what's going on with these businesses? And
I've still got a lot to learn, but it's really exciting for me and knowing that I can access
so much news and information so easily only makes me want to learn more. Research and
due diligence, they matter.
Pro number three, good customer service. I've only ever had to call TD Ameritrade's customer
service a few times, and one of the times I remember I was just calling because I was
worried I was making a larger than normal deposit and I wanted to make sure nothing
got flagged. And the other time was more recent because I was transferring a large chunk of
money from TD Ameritrade to Vanguard. More on that in another video. And I had never
transferred money from one brokerage to another before, but I know that representative sat
on the phone with me, answered my questions, and put me at ease. I think the true mark
of good customer service for a brokerage is how they treat you at all times, and in TD
Ameritrade's case, whether they were getting a large chunk of my money or losing a chunk
of my money, they still treated me like a customer they care about.
Pro number four, simple drips and beneficiaries. Dividend reinvestment is critical, especially
if you're a buy and hold value investor. Dividend reinvestment is a major factor in determining
how much your portfolio is going to grow over time, and with TD Ameritrade, setting up that
dividend reinvestment is really easy. And where do your stocks and investments go should
something happen to you? Well, in TD Ameritrade, it's also very easy to set up beneficiaries.
I'm not exactly sure how the beneficiaries you set up work together with an official
will, so in that case you should probably contact some estate planning, professional
or a lawyer. But I do know that having beneficiaries is very important.
Here's what I don't like about TD Ameritrade. Con number one, mutual fund expenses. The
biggest con for me with TD Ameritrade is the expenses that you have to pay when buying
a mutual fund. And yes, that includes index funds. Even a really good index fund carries
a small expense ratio. But when you're buying these good index funds through TD Ameritrade,
they tack on that brokerage fee as well. Con number two, TD Ameritrade's mobile app. Personally,
I like to do my investing at home on my laptop, but I'm sure there are a ton of investors
who like to do their investing on mobile. And while TD Ameritrade's desktop app kills
it, their mobile app doesn't. It's just okay. You can do the basic stuff. You can see account
overviews, buy and sell, et cetera, but there's no real special functionality. Nothing that
really jumps out at me. There are better mobile investing apps out there. Now, I'm talking
about their standard brokerage app because I don't use their trading app, Think or Swim.
TD Ameritrade's Think or Swim is supposed to be a lot more robust. I've never tried
it, but it's supposedly noteworthy.
The beauty of TD Ameritrade is that it is totally free to open an account, at least
at the time of this recording. So don't feel like you need wads of cash to get started.
I know I didn't have that. You can start wherever you're at, wherever you feel comfortable.
But keep in mind that if you're trying to open a margin account or get options privileges
on your account, I want to say, that's a minimum of $2,000 to open that account. But your standard
brokerage account, you can open for free. Let's take a brief look at some of TD Ameritrade's
most useful features. And one of my favorite things is just how visual TD Ameritrade's
dashboard is. So this is my account overview. I love that your account overview starts off
with position cards. It shows you exactly which stocks you own and what percentages
these stocks account for in your portfolio. And you can also see market snapshots just
beneath that, of the S&P500, the Dow Jones, and the NASDAQ.
And if we go to positions, we can get some more details. Now, first, here's a feature
that you don't see all the time, but sometimes when there are important notifications, TD
Ameritrade will post it right here. So in this case, it's talking about Apple and Tesla
stock splits, and it's telling you how it's going to affect you if you're an Apple stock
owner or a Tesla stock owner. But that's just something extra, but it's very useful. But
if we scroll down, we can get a closer look at each individual stock. So if I hover over
any one of these, I can get a quote. And if I click on one of them, so, for example, if
I click on Google, then we get details about Google. I could easily see what type of stock
it is, which index it's listed on, stock price, things like the PE ratio, it's 52 week range,
how it's performing, so this black line, how it's performing against the S&P500, the purple
line, and the NASDAQ. I can add in the Dow Jones with a click. So extremely useful.
And if I want to do further research, I can scroll down and I can see the latest news
about Google. Just crazy valuable information. And if we scroll back up, each one of these
tabs is something else that can be very useful for me. So, for example, if I want to look
at fundamentals, if I'm trying to learn more about what's under the hood of Google, then
I can take a closer look at the balance sheet, the income statement, cash flows. Very, very
important. And this is stuff that I'm trying to learn more about myself. You can look at
peers. So, in this case, companies like Facebook, Twitter, Match Group, Pinterest, and you can
see how Google is performing against its peers. And literally we could stay here all day just
looking at this one company. And so you see the power of TD Ameritrade's research. There's
so much you can do with it.
And I'm not going to go into great detail about this because I made a separate video
about it, but it is very, very easy to enroll in TD Ameritrade's Dividend Reinvestment Program,
and I think it's something every investor should know about. TD Ameritrade is great
for beginning investors. TD Ameritrade is also great for traders. I don't personally
do it, but I know there are people out there who do. TD Ameritrade is great for that person
who wants to get a deeper understanding of the market. It's also perfect for that person
who wants to dig deeper into understanding the companies that they're investing in. TD
Ameritrade isn't necessarily the best option for people who are focusing on FIRE, financial
independence, retire early. Why? Because TD Ameritrade isn't giving you the best deal
on purchasing index and mutual funds.
It isn't for people who don't want to grow their money beyond their bank. And, again,
this isn't investment advice, but I know some people are stuck on their traditional banks
and the often low interest rates that they pay. I've been using TD Ameritrade for years
now. And to be honest, I'm pretty happy with the service that I've been getting from them.
I wouldn't say it's the perfect brokerage, but it's good, and I'm going to give TD Ameritrade
a B-plus. Well, that'll wrap it up for today's TD Ameritrade review. As always, thank you
so much for watching. If you enjoyed today's video, please don't forget to electric boogaloo
that like button, share, and if you're brave enough, subscribe and join me on this journey
to grow Mind Over Finance to 1000 subscribers strong. And if you have any experience with
TD Ameritrade, good or bad, please let me know in the comments section. Until next time,
guys.