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Strategies & Market Trends : Dividend investing for retirement -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: wilywilly who wrote (15572)	5/2/2013 3:46:37 PM
From: geoffrey Wren	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 34328

TD Ameritrade charges about $10 per trade. Scottrade charges about $7 a trade. TD Ameritrade has better internet site. They seem more secure. I have most everything there. I have minor's account at Scottrade (because they open accounts with smaller minimum). I was in Scottrade to deposit some birthday checks to my son's account, and they made a pitch to transfer TD Ameritrade accounts to them and they would give me $600. Maybe I should have done that. TD Ameritrade broker calls me every 3 months or so to say hi. So I mentioned what Scottrade did and asked if I could get some complimentary trades for having not moved my accounts. He gave me 10 trades. I trade somewhat frequently, but I do not know how Scottrade comes out ahead giving $600 for even large account transfers. At $7, that is 90 trades or so. Even if the accounts doubled in value, i doubt that I would trade more. It would just be trades for higher values. That is 3 years or more of trades before they are in the green. I do not get it. It makes me wonder if they do not make money off account servicing. I understand they are compensated for forwarding proxy materials, etc. Maybe there is profit there, rather like the credit cards making money off the merchants (fees) and the consumer (interest).