No margin account at TD Ameritrade for Germans

M

marsman

A German friend who for a long time now has a cash account at TD Ameritrade
has informed me that his application for converting the account to a margin account
has been rejected because of his residency in Germany...
I'm really speechless...
 
Here's an anecdote of my own past experience with Ameritrade many years ago (maybe 2004 or so):
I had a long stock position for some days or weeks. Suddenly the stock rose sharply because of a merger or something, and my position made a profit of about 16k. I haven't known that, I only saw that this had happened some days ago (then), and saw that the stock rebounced some points back (profit taking by the people).
I immediately closed and sacked in a profit of about 13k or so.
I got a phone call from Ameritrade who questioned me how I did that profit. He said that according to new laws (Patriot Act or such a thing) such a questionnaire were normal.
I really felt like in a Nazi police state...
I then switched to a different broker...
 
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1245 said:
I'm not. Foreign accounts require more regulatory work and time than domestic and many firms don't want to spend the time and effort.
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No, my account is fine (due to swiss residency). But all EU accounts (incl. British) can only be cash accounts. I was told this is due to a non-competition agreement with their Luxemburg based daughter TD Directinvesting Internaxx.
 
marsman said:
Here's an anecdote of my own past experience with Ameritrade many years ago (maybe 2004 or so):
I had a long stock position for some days or weeks. Suddenly the stock rose sharply because of a merger or something, and my position made a profit of about 16k. I haven't known that, I only saw that this had happened some days ago (then), and saw that the stock rebounced some points back (profit taking by the people).
I immediately closed and sacked in a profit of about 13k or so.
I got a phone call from Ameritrade who questioned me how I did that profit. He said that according to new laws (Patriot Act or such a thing) such a questionnaire were normal.
I really felt like in a Nazi police state...
I then switched to a different broker...
More...

I been asked this first few years after 911 how I was making some trades of larger than most and got in and out at good times, but when you are doing hundreds of trades in a year, bound to have a few that are making plus 100 to 1 reward to risk. Am sure since you only had that one trade, they were thinking inside information, it is funny, that been going on for years to those in the know, but when public gets lucky, all of a sudden they after you cause higher ups don't want the general public to know what they do. Changing brokers, I think all brokers are really that way, last thing any of them want is feds breathing down their throat.

And to make 30% is possible with small accounts once you get into millions it is much harder, not cause system not working but can't do the quantity you need, plus you always have to think of the getting out, if people refuse to take other side of a trade at reasonable exit, you have to take unreasonable amounts and there goes your profits. I learned that hard way with Copper options. Very unreasonable expectations as those who shoot for too high percentages, that tend to have huge drawdowns too, it is not how much you make, it is what you don't lose to build your account, steady growth in better than roller coaster, nothing wrong with 4% a month which I might add hedge funds can't do on average.

Much luck to you.
 
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In my opinion this is discrimination based on nationality/origin.
Either they should treat all of their clients equal, or don't accept clients from european countries.
Currently they accept clients from european countries, but they treat them differently than the rest of their clients: european clients have less rights then the rest, they can't have margin accounts...
This is a big shame for such a country like the US.
Can TD Ameritrade practice such a discrimination?
 
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I could say the same as a Canadian. We cannot open an account with a U.S broker unless they have a shop setup over the border, like IB Canada.

Even TD direct investing( TD Canada version) is completely different. We have 3 platforms, Active Trader which is a sad Java sluggish piece of software. TD Active Trader which is kind of an antique software now. Minimum amount of trades plus theirs the data fees, not much documentation, never tried it. And then you have the web based WebBroker which is just a website with some research tools and some snapshot charts, has its order entry and such.

Oh and then you do have TOS which they call U.S Trading platform which is only allowed to trade u.s margin accounts and u.s stocks, no registered accounts allowed. Think Ameritrade advertises 7.99 per trade while on the Canadian side were at 9.99.

I don't blame them as I know theirs probably a ridiculous amount of regulation on our side to deal with, and I do believe even seperate provinces have their own regulation. Think Quebec and British Columbia have some rules as I've seen posters have issues with some firms.
 
Metamega said:
I could say the same as a Canadian.
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Metamega,

Canada is completely different. Canadian securities laws require every firm that does business there register there. Canadian regulators do not allow leveraged accounts like PM. You can blame your Country's laws for this, not broker dealers.
 
Thanks for the clarification. Do you work/ have worked in the industry? You seem to have a lot of knowledge in this area.

I have to laugh when I see some of the banks here in Canada are still charging 29.99 a trade unless you have enough assets with them. Seems absurd when you have competition like IB Canada.
 
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