TD Ameritrade or Fidelity?

[LivingAlmostLarge]

Which brokerage/IRA account do you have and why? Do you have TD Ameritrade or Fidelity? Which do you like better if you have both? Why do you prefer one over the other? How did you pick?

[feh]

I'm currently a Fidelity customer, and I was a TD customer for several years in the 00's.

I don't have any complaints of either; I would label them both as "full service" brokerages, with good web sites and good customer service.

One potential difference is that TD does not provide their own funds (to the best of my knowledge). Fidelity has a wide variety of low cost funds (second only to Vanguard, probably), so it may be advantageous to cut out the middle man if you want to buy their funds.

[Petunia 100]

I like whichever brokerage house gives me free trades.

[cardtrick]

Interactive Brokers - Regular brokerage account. Pros: Cheapest commissions that I have found for retail investors, access to stock markets around the world, can also trade futures. Cons: Must generate at least $10 in commissions each month else they charge the difference as an inactivity fee.

OptionsHouse IRA - $3.95 per stock trade. Commission is now $4.75 but I'm still being charged $3.95. Can trade options too. But everything is limited to US markets (exchange traded, pink sheets and ADRs)

PM me if anyone is interested in opening an account. They both have nice referral bonuses.

[Tabs]

I too confess that I am with Fidelity.

That said though, their Spartan funds' expense ratios are typically lower than even Vanguards (but maybe not against the Admiral share... the two have been competing for a while), with the tradeoff being that they want a much larger investment sum from you to buy into their funds.

For a while, Fidelity was also offering commission-free trades with certain ETFs. They might still be doing that, but I am not sure.

My father is with TD Ameritrade. I've looked at their services for a while for him, and I honestly don't see any advantages of going with TD Ameritrade over Fidelity personally, but I could be wrong.

Both are full service companies that you can expect to be treated well with good customer support and reliable trading service.

[GrimJack]

Does Fidelity offer free DRiPing? TDWaterhouse does. I have a couple of IRAs with TDW that hold dividend producing stocks; fractional shares are purchased with the dividends. Of course, this is a specialized situation, YMMV.