No margin account at TD Ameritrade for Germans

Metamega said:
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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  • I don't think any banks in Canada charge 29.99 a trade.
  • The going rate seems to be about $9.99 plus $1.25 per option contract.
  • Problem with IB is the minimum $10,000 USD to open an account.
  • Both BMO Investorline and TD Direct Investing have no minimum to open an account in Canada.

:)
 
http://www.scotiabank.com/itrade/en/0,,3693,00.html

Unless you meet assets with them or trading activity. Could've swore there was another one. Thought CIBC was the other one but their actually offering 6.95 trades and Desjardins is showing 9.99 for 1 - 10 trades and 5-9.99 for 10 trades and over per quarter which was surprising.

Personally use TD with no issues but the more I trade the more IB looks to be a better option. However the wife is uncomfortable with the idea of it( even though I explained to her theirs be the same level of protection.... Banks can go broke lol). But trust and confidence from my wife is more important then trading. Pick my battles.
 
lol bullsh*t. You're a German. duh. There's no U.S. civil protection, rights, obligations for foreigners in a foreign country. Or even Americans in a foreign country. AMTD can do whatever they want. They don't owe you a margin account. lol It's a good broker. Stupid post.
 
JNL said:
lol bullsh*t. You're a German. duh. There's no U.S. civil protection, rights, obligations for foreigners in a foreign country. Or even Americans in a foreign country. AMTD can do whatever they want. They don't owe you a margin account. lol It's a good broker. Stupid post.
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You are wrong, I'm not a German, the said friend is a German.
TD Ameritrade treats its customers differently, that is in my view discrimination.
And I strongly doubt that TD Ameritrade is a good broker; there are many horror stories on the web about TD Ameritrade.
It is said that TD Ameritrade would frontrun their own clients, or let it be done by a 3rd party by selling the client transactions realtime to the 3rd party (Citadel etc)...
 
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You can always work with an offshore BD like TradeZero that not only allows non US citizens to trade the US markets but they also give me 6 to 1 leverage. I also trade there for free
 
marsman said:
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...
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I recently had a chat support session with TD Ameritrade concerning application for a margin account. It was denied on the basis that I'm residing in Austria. I have dual citizenship (USA & AT) but here's the clou - according to support, it's based on Austrian regulations (which truly surprised me). I requested which Austrian (or EU agency) determines this. The administrator tried to get a more specific answer from the department but to no avail - the only solid answer I got was that dual citizenship makes no difference.

Unfortunately, I found out that an approval for margin is necessary for spread options, also for Futures trading. I was really hoping to find another way to hedge my account other than using SPY all the time.

Ofcourse it's TD Ameritrade's choice to decide who and what can be traded....but they seem to have a flat policy on foreign accounts vs. margin account approval. The support person specifically asked if I'm living in Austria...to which I said yes.........then the immediate "look-up-the-country-for-your-response-to-the-client" answer of "no" came....hence, my hunch is that EU regulations are at play here.
 
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