TD Ameritrade Drops Online Stock, ETF, and Option Trades Commissions To $0

By Amit Chowdhry ● Oct 2, 2019
  • TD Ameritrade Holding announced its U.S. brokerage firm is eliminating commissions for online exchange-listed stock, ETF, and options trades

TD Ameritrade Holding announced that its U.S. brokerage firm is eliminating commissions for its online exchange-listed stock, ETF (domestic and Canadian), and options trades from $6.95 to $0, effective Thursday, October 3, 2019. And clients trading options will now pay $0.65 per contract with no exercise and assignment fees.

“We are committed to giving our clients the best possible investing experience, with cutting-edge technology and award-winning investor education and service teams. And now, that experience just got better,” said TD Ameritrade president and CEO Tim Hockey. “We’ve been taking market share with a premium price point, and with a $0 price point and a level playing field, we are even more confident in our competitive position, and the value we offer our clients.”

Over the last 45 years, TD Ameritrade pioneered trading and investing experiences that continually push the envelope of what clients are expecting from brokerage firms.

For example, TD Ameritrade is known for offering the first touch-tone phone trade to the first mobile trade. And now the company is committed to exploring new opportunities that deliver better experiences for clients. And TD Ameritrade’s trading platform thinkorswim was rated #1 by Stockbrokers.com for 4 years in a row.

“This is great news for our clients, and thanks to the diversity of our business model, we’re able to make it a reality,” added TD Ameritrade CFO Steve Boyle. “We expect this decision to have a revenue impact of approximately $220-240 million per quarter, or approximately 15-16 percent of net revenues, based on June Quarter fiscal 2019 revenue. We’ll have more information about our fiscal 2020 plan when we release fourth-quarter earnings later this month.”

The rates will be effective for TD Ameritrade retail clients as well as clients of independent registered investment advisors that utilize TD Ameritrade Institutional. And a final pricing schedule will be available on October 3, 2019.