TD Ameritrade Holding Corporation

Does TD Ameritrade still exist?

No. Charles Schwab acquired the company in October 2020, completed client account integration through 2023, and retired the TD Ameritrade brand. The tdameritrade.com website redirects to Schwab.

Is TD Ameritrade publicly traded?

No. TD Ameritrade traded on Nasdaq under AMTD until the October 2020 acquisition, when shareholders received Schwab stock and the shares were delisted. Its successor trades as SCHW on the NYSE.

Who founded TD Ameritrade?

J. Joseph Ricketts founded First Omaha Securities in Omaha in 1975. The company renamed itself Ameritrade in 1996 and became TD Ameritrade after merging with TD Waterhouse USA in 2006.

Where was TD Ameritrade headquartered?

The company was headquartered in Omaha, Nebraska, its home since founding. The campus now operates as a major Charles Schwab employment center.

Who owns TD Ameritrade?

Charles Schwab owns the former TD Ameritrade business outright, having acquired it for approximately $22 billion in stock. Toronto-Dominion Bank, the former major shareholder, received Schwab shares it has since sold down.

What happened to thinkorswim?

Schwab retained thinkorswim as its flagship trading platform after the acquisition. The platform continues active development under Schwab and remains the primary survivor of the TD Ameritrade brand portfolio.

How much did Schwab pay for TD Ameritrade?

Approximately $22 billion in an all-stock transaction announced November 25, 2019, and completed October 6, 2020. TD Ameritrade shareholders received 1.0837 Schwab shares for each share held.

J. Joseph Ricketts founded First Omaha Securities in 1975 in Omaha, Nebraska, anticipating the deregulation of commission rates that the SEC implemented that May. When fixed commissions ended, First Omaha quickly repositioned as a discount broker, cutting prices for self-directed investors and building the discount model that would define the company.

Growth came through acquisition and reinvention. The company went public in 1997 as Ameritrade Holding Corporation under Nasdaq ticker AMTD, having rebranded to reflect its national reach. Through the dot-com era it was a leading online broker, and post-crash consolidation made it an acquirer: it bought National Discount Brokers in 2001 and, most significantly, merged with TD Waterhouse USA in 2006 in a deal that added Toronto-Dominion Bank as a major shareholder and created the TD Ameritrade name.

The 2009 acquisition of thinkorswim Group for approximately $606 million was strategically transformative. The options-focused platform brought professional-grade tools, derivatives expertise, and a technology lead that competitors spent years chasing. Under CEO Fred Tomczyk and later Tim Hockey, the company grew to roughly $5 billion in annual revenue, nearly $1 trillion in client assets, and 11 million funded accounts by the late 2010s.

The commission wars ended it. When Schwab, then every major broker, cut stock trading commissions to zero in October 2019, the industry's economics collapsed. Within weeks Schwab announced the $22 billion all-stock acquisition of TD Ameritrade, announced November 25, 2019, and closed October 6, 2020, after regulatory clearance. Integration ran through 2023, migrating all client accounts to Schwab systems and retiring the brand.

The Ricketts family legacy persisted separately: J. Joseph Ricketts used his Ameritrade fortune to buy the Chicago Cubs in 2009, a family asset unrelated to the brokerage's corporate fate.

The company faced the standard regulatory record of a large broker-dealer: periodic FINRA fines for supervisory and reporting failures and SEC settlements typical of the industry. No single enforcement action defined its history at the scale of the wire-house scandals.

The 2020 acquisition itself drew antitrust scrutiny before clearing, with regulators examining whether combining the two largest independent discount brokers would harm retail investors. The deal closed after review, and post-merger outcomes largely validated the efficiency argument as Schwab passed through scale benefits.

The integration period generated its own friction: account migration issues, service disruptions as systems combined, and client complaints during the transition, all resolved as the migration completed in 2023.