TD Ameritrade Offers 100+ Commission-free ETFs

TD Ameritrade recently announced that they will be offering a list of over 100 ETFs that can be traded with no commission if you hold them for at least 30 days. Supposedly, they asked Morningstar to pick 100 ETFs that would be most useful for long-term investors to build a ETF portfolio.

The current 100 ETFs that make the list include 47 from iShares, 32 from Vanguard, and 12 from State Street. You can view the entire list here. You must enroll and accept the terms, because if you don’t hold the ETF for 30 days, they will charge you a short-term trading fee of $19.99. Their standard price for other trades remains at $9.99.

Going over the list, it does appear to include all the most popular ETFs, including just about all of the ETFs that I have been interested in investing in. However, it doesn’t include all the ETFs from any particular family.

Selected Vanguard ETFs: Total Bond (BNS), Small Cap Value (VBR), FTSE All World ex US (VEU), Total Stock Market (VTI), and Emerging Markets (VWO)

Selected iShares ETFs: Barclays TIPS Bond (TIP), Barclays 1-3 Year Treasury Bond (SHY), and S&P SmallCap 600 Value Index (IJS)

This is after similar moves by other major brokers:

Find more in Investing | 10/12/10, 5:00am | Trackback

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Google Offers Free PC-to-Phone Calls To US & Canada

There was a lot of media coverage yesterday when Google announced that they would offer PC-to-Phone calls to US and Canada numbers for free from their Gmail interface. To try it out if you haven’t already, just log into your Gmail email account.

But wait… Google Voice (GV) has offered free US long-distance for a while already, and they’ll call your landline or cell phone so that you don’t have to sit by your PC and use a headset. Much more convenient in my opinion, even though I still love my Ooma. I primarily use GV for their voicemail transcription feature.

On top of that, let’s say you live in Texas and a big chunk of family and friends live in San Francisco that use landlines. Sign up for a Google Voice number with a San Francisco area code, and have your friends call that number. It’ll count as a local call for them, and will be forwarded for free to your existing phone.

However, this does make it more convenient to use, since Google’s service works within a web browser (plugin required) instead of a separate application. Skype might have to drop their prices as well, since they charge 2.1 cents a minute or $3 a month unlimited for the same features. Another perk is for international residents that want to call into the US for free, it appears you just need to have Gmail and have the default language set to “US English”.

Find more in Deals & Offers, Frugal Living | 8/27/10, 4:27am | Trackback

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