TD Ameritrade and Etrade to Merge?
While doing my morning routine today I came across news that TD Ameritrade (AMTD) and Etrade Financial (ETFC) might merge. The two companies are quite large on their own, TD Ameritrade alone boasts a market cap of $10.22 Billion, so the two together would make a pretty decently sized force.
If you read my post on changing online brokers, I mentioned that Etrade has its primary focus on active traders, whereas TD Ameritrade focuses on the independent trader (the average investor). Both have made good pushes into entering the online banking game and have a lot to offer clients.
The biggest backers of this deal are two hedge funds, Jana Partners LLC and S.A.C. Capital Advisors who collectively own 8.4% of TD Ameritrade shares. These two have been pushing for the company to merge with either E-trade or Charles Schwab Corp (SCHW).
Why this is significant is because if you recall TD Ameritrade became TD Ameritrade after they bought out TD Waterhouse last year. The bottom line is that the online broker industry continues to consolidate as competition becomes more intense.
What I want to know is, if the two merge, what will they call themselves? TDE Ameritrade?
Discuss this post in the StockTradingToGo Forum.
Subscribe To StockTradingToGo.com
More like TD AmerE-trade…??
Did Ameritrade buy Waterhouse or vice versa? Here in Canada (home to TD) it is still known as TD Waterhouse, no “ameri” anything.
Just curious.
Wow really? I thought everything was changed over to TD Ameritrade, interesting. I do know though that Ameritrade did buy out TD Waterhouse.
Actually you know what, this makes sense. TD Waterhouse already had locations established when they were bought out. Perhaps these are all still denoted as TD Waterhouse but run under the new TD Ameritrade system.
I’ve always liked TD for investing and I’ve only heard good things about Etrade, so it should be neat to see them merge and how services can improve…
I loved TD Waterhouse. L2 quotes, decent prices… what’s not to love? I seen a friend of mine have a billion features when he logs in, but he has special privledges on a special account.
I’m stuck at CIBC’s Investor’s Edge (with very few options) at the moment but have been thinking about making a move to TD Waterhouse. I’ll wait now and see what kind of deals they give after the merge… I bet they will be very competitive now… tons of features and a great price.
Etrade is definitely one of the best broker around. It is cheap, fast and easy to use. I even had a chance to speak to some traders (from other financial institutions) and they were all trading from Etrade instead of their own company’s system.
TD will be able to probably offer the best system around with the best price. A great step for them!
[...] Etrade and TD Ameritrade Merger? [...]