It's Friday and TD Ameritrade is starting the weekend off with a bang. The online brokerage said starting today, it will allow its customers to buy and sell more than 100 exchange traded funds with no commission, according to a USA Today report .

The 101 ETFs that qualify for no-commission trades were selected as the best in their categories by Morningstar and include offerings from BlackRock's iShares, Vanguard and State Street. Short-term investors who do not hold the ETF for 30 calendar days will still be charged the brokerage's standard $9.99 per trade commission.

TD Ameritrade's move signals its willingness to duke it out with rivals Charles Schwab, Vanguard and Fidelity, who all currently have similiar free ETF trades programs. However, Vanguard's free-commission deal is restricted to its own 47 ETFs and Fidelity offers free trading in 25 iShares ETFs.

To be sure, the industry-wide no-commission offers for ETFs have not spurred investors into the investments, according to Matthew Hougan, president of ETF analytics at Index Universe.  

Edited by: Hung Tran


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