Is TD Ameritrade best for buying and selling in US market? 0 commission fee, does it mean we do not have to pay any fee when buy sell shares and etfs using their platform? Or there are other fee?

Are there any fee that I should be concerned with when invest in US? And they will show clearly upon payment right?

How is the exchange rate like? Do you transfer SGD into account and they do the conversion for us? Or is better to convert elsewhere and USD?

Is there platform informative?

TD Ameritrade

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Liam Lim Yu Zheng

19 Oct 2020

Edit on 19 Oct 2020: referral seems to have ended early oct 2020, from my phonecall with them. In fact, you dont see it on their website anymore

Anw...

I've been a longtime user of TD. Truly 0 fees when buy sell shares, and ALL fees clearly shown when u click "buy/sell". Their free comms, no custodian fees, excellent charting tools, 24/5 support in sg/US, ease of SGD transfer in (xfer SGD in via DBS/POSB, TD auto converts for u) + good forex rates (0.1-0.2pips) , make it a desirable brokerage. DYODD!

Also, registration has been taking quite a while. apparently if you call on weekday nights, they're more responsive

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Rahul Wadhwa

14 Sep 2020

Student Ambassador 2020/21 at Seedly

Hi Anon!

You're right, TD is pretty transparent with showing their fees when you are making a trade. They do still make a cut on the spread when you trade.

Like Yu Zheng has mentioned, they have the option of deposting SGD and their in-house rates are pretty competitive. The alternative is to do a wire transfer straight to their US bank, which is what I personally do. I use SC remit to do this.

I feel TD's platforms are one of the best out there, even though there might be a slight learning curve, especially with the desktop application, it is worth taking the time to learn how to use their platforms. They have advanced charting tools, live CNBC streaming and educational resources on their platforms, just to name a few.

Some limitations of TD include their wire out fees, it costs 25 USD to wire out your funds, and there is a restriction on how much you can trade within a certain time period. As TD is a US broker, the rules of being a "pattern day trader" applies to us. We can only make 3 day trades within a period of 5 business days, else we will need to maintain a USD25k minimum deposit in our accounts (which may not be a problem for some of us), but do take note of the restriction.

Also, currently, their customer service seems to be overwhelmed (presumably since they announced $0 comissions, but hopefully it gets better soon)

If you do want to trade frequently but do not want to be subjected to these rules, you could try out another broker, like tiger brokers. They have live data and competitive comissions for US markets.

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