Online Broker Review

Updated Wednesday, December 10, 2008

Research Tools Grade: A

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Overview:

TD Ameritrade is an excellent provider of research, especially those focused on active trading. Market commentary and individual stock research reports are provided by a wide variety of sources. The stock screener and calendar get the job done. Online and in-person seminars are nice bonuses. I didn't have a chance to try out additional tools such as The Buzz and the Banter but for active traders they may be worth a look. TD Ameritrade research receives my highest grade.

Details:

The TD Ameritrade main research page (click on images for larger views):

TD Ameritrade offers their own market commentary. Third party commentary and individual stock research is provided by Standard & Poor's, Second Opinion reports by MarketEdge, TheStreet.com, Ford Equity Research, Jaywalk Consensus Reports by BNY ConvergEx Group and several other groups.

TD Ameritrade features several custom investment tools. The first, called The Buzz and Banter, is provided by Minyanville. According to Minyanville, "during market hours, The Buzz and the Banter provides insight and ideas that help our members better assimiliate the movements of the markets." Another tool, PredictWallStreet, "provides continually updated information about the possible movement of security and index values, based on the collective wisdom of people like you. The idea is simple. You share your opinion on whether you think a stock or index will go up or down. PredictWallStreet combines all the predictions it receives and provides information about the community sentiment, accuracy of the community predictions as well as forecasts for individual stocks, ETFs and indices."

On a regular basis, TD Ameritrade offers free in-person investment seminars all across the United States. Open to all customers, these presentations seem seem to mostly feature speakers that are longtime TD Ameritrade customers of the active trading variety. Also available are weekly webcasts - one focused on stock trading and the other on options.

The calendar shows earnings announcements, dividends, splits, IPOs and economic indicators. Here we see the economic indicators due on Monday, November 17th, the consensus estimates and the prior readings:

The stock screener tool to search for stocks based on typical screening criteria. Here I get 188 matches based on my criteria of market cap, P/E ratio, price/sales and revenue growth/loss:

TD Ameritrade Research Tools