Following our recent article to avoid brokerages that cleared stock trades through Penson, two different readers wrote in saying that for the last few months TD Ameritrade has made them call in orders to buy certain penny stocks. The specific symbols mentioned by one reader were ONCS and AAVG but they said there were other securities they couldn’t recall but that it was a total hassle during fast moving situations to have to call in to buy these types of stocks. There was no problem in selling them, but a trader would have to call TD Ameritrade to execute a buy.
We called TD Ameritrade today, and lo and behold they confirmed that was indeed the case: You’ve got to call in buys on certain stocks.
Because of this we are now downgrading our recommendation of TD Ameritrade as a platform for trading penny stocks and suggest people looking to trade cheap stocks
look for a different broker that provides true and full online accessibility for trading.
http://www.damngoodpennypicks.com
I been with Ameritrade for some time now, and only one time did I have a problem with them not filling an order, don’t remember the IPO but I do know it was a pink, and it tanked so wasn’t that disappointed. just throwing my 2 pennies in.
Hey Brian,
Thanks for your input.
It’s clear you can trade many pink sheets, OTCBB and other penny stocks through TD Ameritrade without any issues. Just sign in,
go to the order entry page and away you go.
However, for some reason TD Ameritrade has recently begun requiring call ins to verify that you do indeed want to buy the penny stock for which you are putting the order in.
Our guess is that these are very low volume stocks or are super cheap stocks like those ultra sub-pennies, though we have not confirmed that with TD Ameritrade.
In our call to them, they simply said they handle stocks on a “case by case” basis, so it’s difficult to know what is their criteria for requiring an investor to call in.
You can still place the trade without a problem, but for some penny stocks, you’ve got to call in.
Hope all is well.
Jeff Mirkin
Admin
http://www.damngoodpennypicks.com