As big brokerages compete with rising challenger brands, dark horse Tastytrade is entering the fray with a plan to win over active traders, including a brand awareness campaign that launched earlier this month.
Tastytrade is building its brand recognition as dominant brokers contend with the aftermath of mergers, said Catherine Davis, chief marketing officer of IG Group North America, parent company of Tastytrade.
Charles Schwab Corp. closed its $26 billion acquisition of TD Ameritrade in late 2020 but didn’t finish transitioning 1.8 million TD Ameritrade customers and their roughly $350 billion in assets to its platform until May 2024. Clients expressed frustration with the transition and looked for other places to take their business throughout the process, according to a report from the Wall Street Journal. Charles Schwab in 2023 conceded that it lost retail customers but stated that it outperformed client retention expectations. Meanwhile, E-Trade was acquired by Morgan Stanley for $13 billion in 2020 and finished migrating accounts in 2023.
Competitor Robinhood has repeatedly taken shots at the giants, establishing itself as a home for erstwhile customers beginning in late 2023, the Wall Street Journal reported. Robinhood also agreed to acquire TradePMR in November, signaling its entry into the investment advisory space.
Tastytrade has sought to establish itself as an alternative to such competitors, largely with its own two-to-three-minute educational YouTube videos and livestreams from sibling company Tastylive, which analyzes the market for several hours each day, Davis said.
“It’s 10 hours a day seven days a week,” she said. “That’s a lot of educational content for people, which is different than a lot of our competitors. The two-to-three minute video format we’ve used for Tastytrade makes a lot of sense, too.”