Should I transition all my stocks to brokerage offering free stock trades?

[jeromedawg]

Hey all,

I currently have most stocks I own in a TD Ameritrade (formerly Scottrade) account and a couple in Fidelity. Most of these were gifted from my dad as I avoid stock-picking and trading. I've had some stuff in Robinhood and Loyal3 before but I know those are somewhat limited in terms of stock availability - I think I researched before but I hold a few stocks that I would not have been able to transfer over to either.

I was wondering if there is a brokerage out there that anyone would recommend in terms of offering free stock trades and has a vast array of stocks. This would mainly be for the purpose of moving over so I could start selling them off without incurring fees. In the meantime, I've just been doing charitable donations with these since all of them have had gains, which seems to be the best way to offload them - no fees but also no incurring cap gains AND also being able to deduct... maybe I ought to just stick with that until I finally unload them all haha.

[Rob_bob]

I have a TDA account, been there forever.  I don't have a problem with the trade commissions, I just don't trade that much.  They have no fee ETF's as well although there are only two that I use.

How many stocks do you have and do you need to be in a hurry to sell them?  Are the tax deductions from charitable giving better than the gain you would have after paying cap gains tax?

[Blueberries]

I don't think it makes sense to switch unless you plan on doing a large amount of transactions that will cut into your profits in a meaningful way.  In which case, I'd ask why you are doing it that way.  If you just want to sell, sell your stocks, pay the commission, and be done with it.  You may end up paying to transfer, there will be a time frame in which you may not be able to trade, and it's often more hassle than it's worth. 

[TheHardenedInvestor]

Elect to receive your TD Ameritrade tax documents electronically right now and they will credit your account 5 free trades. How many individual stocks are we talking about? At $7 a trade and with 5 free trades, I wouldn’t worry about it.

[HAPPYINAZ]

Depending on how much $$ you have in those accts, you can make some money moving them to other brokerages.  Etrade pays good bonuses for moving money to them.  And they have commission free trades for lots of funds, including index funds.  You can also continue with donating to charity for free with them too.  And they usually include 500 free trades for the first 60 days for stocks and options.   

[Car Jack]

Add up the commissions.  I believe TDA charges only $4.95 for stock trades.  If you have an Edward Jones kind of account with 93 different stock at 10 shares of each, then sure, moving over to someone like Merrill Edge might make sense if you have enough to qualify for enough free trades to get you out of your stock fiasco.  Be sure you have the basis for every stock before you more.  I've considered moving to ME, but I've only got about $100k in taxable and only $30k that I can't already sell commission free. (VTI at TDA, actually).  Not worth it.

[svosavvy]

I have a brokerage and a roth ira with Merrill Edge.  I am there for the free commissions.  I am not a big trader but enjoy not paying a fee.  I find they are fine for plain vanilla stock buying and selling.  If you want to do more sophisticated trades they make you jump through a million hoops and options are not free.  I find their customer service reps depth of knowledge is pretty shallow.  So I do my plain vanilla investing there and maintain my Etrade brokerage account for the freaky stuff (hedging and speculating).  I don't do much speculating these days, just enough to maintain some excitement and keep me engaged.  It is pretty funny I have a few stocks that are American Depository Receipts (ADRs). Merrill is so wigged out by them that they sent me a little code card.  Anytime I want to buy or sell them I have to press the button on this card that looks like a credit card sized calculator from the 80's. It generates an algorithmic set of numbers that I have to input verifying it's really me so I can't blame them for making a poor decision.  Pretty funny.