UPDATE: TD Ameritrade Schwab account migration

[ex_hacker202]

12 hours ago, wilburpost2 said:

IDK @Fido. Just click products, CDs, and then search CDs. You get a rate summary by term. Just click on whatever product you want.

I found that - what I was looking at was the secondary market for CD's - that link you gave is only for new issues - finding secondary CD's is what takes so much time compared to TDA. I've been reading the Schwab and Fidelity sub-Reddits the last few days looking for a few specifics answers, like why won't Schwab let you enroll in DRIPs, and almost universally people recently switched from TDA to Schwab are terribly unhappy about it - the app stinks, website stinks compared to TDA's, and ThinkorSwim is now unavailable (not sure that's true).. Fido didn't have so many complaints, but they're apparently not anywhere as good as what TDA offered either. Really sad Schwab is taking the best online broker's tools and throwing them away - more than a few said their website looks like it was designed in the 90's for people who invest money then set and forget - if you trade, you're going to hate Schwab - their app (maybe website too?) doesn't.automatically update quotes, you have to do it manually with a refresh button - seriously?

[wilburpost2]

Yes, secondaries are more difficult. All sorts of CDs of hysterias past. I've looked at secondaries but haven't found anything amazing compared to new issues. Well, I guess Fido, and other brokers are what they are and one might be better than another for a particular use. There's a good side to it, if it's difficult to search sec CDs then you might find something good that others missed. Just looked at Fido sec CDs, like 2500 to sort through, good luck with that! And yes, it amazes me that large companies with like millions of customers have UIs that look so clunky. OTOH I've seen flashy cutting edge sites that are a frustrating mess to navigate. So I just want to get something done fast and don't really care about esthetics. 

So we have the power tag team of Medved and Medved so we don't have to deal with any stinky broker apps.

Edited October 23, 2023 by wilburpost2

[jca]

Today's email confirmation (Mon 10/23) from TDA:

 

[Barnaby]

Just got the same email as well.  😀

[ex_hacker202]

I just had 3 of them show up in my inbox at 1:18 pm EDT, one for each TDA account - whew! Thank god that's over with for now.

[crg27]

TD shows on my page that I'm being moved on Nov 3rd. After that, I CAN'T trade through MT off Schwab's site?

[Jerry Medved]

you can try getting it changed again. If it does not change, then after the transition you would not be able to trade via MT until we get the API from Schwab. We will implement stuff as soon as we get it. That's the best we can do.

[crg27]

Thanks. Another question. Will data still stream on MT if my date isn't moved? Hopefully, not a dumb question.

[ex_hacker202]

22 minutes ago, crg27 said:

Thanks. Another question. Will data still stream on MT if my date isn't moved? Hopefully, not a dumb question.

Not a dumb question at all - I won't claim this is the official answer (wait for Jerry for that), but I would assume you would not get data from TDA because you could no longer sign into your account - you don't have a TDA account after you're switched to Schwab. I'm afraid unless you open an account with a broker that's on MT's current data feed list (like Fido), you will only be able to get delayed data from Yahoo, the only free data source MT has. I already opened a Fido account just as a backup data source in case TDA didn't delay my switch, was a piece of cake. Just put $100 into it until I decide whether to move everything except my ROTH from TDA to Fido - will probably keep the ROTH with Schwab in order to get faster real time data from Schwab, the kind TDA currently provides - above Jerry said Fido is only updated once a second - shouldn't matter in most cases, but for traders watching L2 and raw time and sales it could make a diff. I don't like the paperwork nightmare of keeping accounts with 3 different brokers straight - I opened a decent sized Ally Invest account when they first offered MT for free but they have since severed ties with MT, pulled access to their API, so I might open a 2nd Fido account and transfer the Ally account to it  - zero reason to keep the Ally account open, and they degraded their website so badly they removed the ability for you to download transactions in csv or QFX formats - unbelievable.

[jca]

Here’s a last resort for TDA account that doesn’t get delayed migration (though I can’t imagine why that would happen). Open a new TDA account, transfer all assets from old account to new account, close old account. Migration will be delayed because account is too new to be included in Nov 3 migration. Originally suggested to me by a TDA Rep, no guarantee but maybe worth checking out.

[Jerry Medved]

If the transition date is not moved and still November, then after the account is transitioned, it will not be accessible in MT until we are able to add the Schwab integration. 

27 minutes ago, jca said:

Here’s a last resort for TDA account that doesn’t get delayed migration (though I can’t imagine why that would happen). Open a new TDA account, transfer all assets from old account to new account, close old account. Migration will be delayed because account is too new to be included in Nov 3 migration. Originally suggested to me by a TDA Rep, no guarantee but maybe worth checking out.

Interesting option - At the very least it gets you the data even if you just fund it minimally.  And moving funds and assets between accounts once they are linked is very fast (done in minutes usually).

[Brynk]

Thanks jca

I did just that and a TDA rep walked me thru the whole process. 

I only transferred 1 equity to the new acct and it should anchor me for the data source. 

I talked w/ 4 different reps thru the process and was truly impressed by their awareness of the situation and how supportive they were.

[Brynk]

• I got this from TDA followup.....whew!

Please note that this account will not move to Schwab with your current account. We will provide the transition date for this account at a later time

[Jerry Medved]

I posted this on X too: 

 

[crg27]

5 hours ago, ex_hacker202 said:

Not a dumb question at all - I won't claim this is the official answer (wait for Jerry for that), but I would assume you would not get data from TDA because you could no longer sign into your account - you don't have a TDA account after you're switched to Schwab. I'm afraid unless you open an account with a broker that's on MT's current data feed list (like Fido), you will only be able to get delayed data from Yahoo, the only free data source MT has. I already opened a Fido account just as a backup data source in case TDA didn't delay my switch, was a piece of cake. Just put $100 into it until I decide whether to move everything except my ROTH from TDA to Fido - will probably keep the ROTH with Schwab in order to get faster real time data from Schwab, the kind TDA currently provides - above Jerry said Fido is only updated once a second - shouldn't matter in most cases, but for traders watching L2 and raw time and sales it could make a diff. I don't like the paperwork nightmare of keeping accounts with 3 different brokers straight - I opened a decent sized Ally Invest account when they first offered MT for free but they have since severed ties with MT, pulled access to their API, so I might open a 2nd Fido account and transfer the Ally account to it  - zero reason to keep the Ally account open, and they degraded their website so badly they removed the ability for you to download transactions in csv or QFX formats - unbelievable.

Thanks for the response. Just did a Fidelity account now. 

[wilburpost2]

The only indication that I received that the transition date had changed was that the Nov 3 box was gone, no emails. TDA did stop sending me "upcoming transition" promo emails. Guess we all will have fingers crossed when we check the PC on 11/3.

[Grant1]

I just got an e-mail saying that my account transition would be delayed. Same standard e-mail as shown from jca above. I don't know if it was in response to my request to delay transition or because of my inquiry about the API. Nice to see that they are responsive to their future customers.

[Doug Hayman]

On 10/24/2023 at 12:30 PM, Jerry Medved said:

I posted this on X too: 

 

In case it's not obvious, do NOT do this with a 401K or IRA account, as it will trigger a taxable event on the base account.

[jca]

3 hours ago, Doug Hayman said:

In case it's not obvious, do NOT do this with a 401K or IRA account, as it will trigger a taxable event on the base account.

The 60-day rollover rule allows transfer from one retirement account to another within 60 days to avoid taxes and penalties, does it not?

[Doug Hayman]

5 minutes ago, jca said:

The 60-day rollover rule allows transfer from one retirement account to another within 60 days to avoid taxes and penalties, does it not?

I think it does, but you will need to make sure the new acct is designated as such.  I just spoke with someone who moved his IRA to a non-IRA trading acct, triggering a tax event, so that's what prompted me to post.

[ydfah]

FYI, I was just speaking to customer support on another matter and asked about the transition status. He told me last Friday was the rough cut off date, with yesterday (Wednesday 10/25/23) being the hard cut-off date regarding delay to March requests. So, if anyone is thinking of calling now and requesting the delay, you're out of luck.

So chop, chop, let's get that API stuff going! 🙂

Edited October 26, 2023 by ydfah

[Jerry Medved]

5 hours ago, Doug Hayman said:

In case it's not obvious, do NOT do this with a 401K or IRA account, as it will trigger a taxable event on the base account.

the assumption is that you would open same type of account, in which case no taxable event. Obviously if you were to transfer from IRA to non-IRA, that would be bad.

[tj29]

Jerry: I use the Edgerater app that has an API to TOS for real time quotes. The transition to Schwab was seamless for this app. I have ER running on two PCs, one PC has TOS/TDA running while the second PC uses TOS/Schwab. Both are working fine. ER does not provide the ability to trade from it but if you can figure out how ER connects to TOS at least we can get RT quotes into MT.

https://www.edgerater.com

[Jerry Medved]

MT uses TD Ameritrade API. if TOS has specific API, it is not public AFAIK and unrelated to MT.

[mlsignups]

Hi @Jerry Medved

My account was targeted for Nov 3 transition.   I did what was suggested above; I created a new account and transferred most $$ over to it and it's there and up and running.

I was able to set up the new account in Medved.   Does that mean the API for that account will be functional?  I don't need to reach out to TD to ask them to enable the API for that account or anything similar? 

Thanks