TD Ameritrade broadens bond platform for advisers

TD Ameritrade Inc. announced today that it will offer new-issue municipal bonds both to its discount clients and the investment advisers who hold assets in custody at the firm. The firm said it should have access to hundreds of new-issue bonds each year through an alliance with municipal underwriter M.R. Beal & Co. "The agreement with M.R. Beal marks a significant expansion of our new-issue municipal bond offering," Peter Sidebottom, executive vice president for product and marketing at TD Ameritrade, said in a statement. TD Ameritrade is following other firms that have beefed up their fixed-income offerings in the post-crash world. In April, The Charles Schwab Corp. announced an agreement with JPMorgan Chase & Co. to give Schwab clients and affiliated advisers access to JPMorgan's fixed-income offerings, including new-issue and secondary municipal bonds. Last year, Pershing LLC struck a deal to with Barclays Capital Inc. to provide Pershing's broker-dealer correspondents and registered investment advisory firms with access to new-issue municipal bonds underwritten by Barclays. Advisers affiliated with Fidelity Institutional Wealth Services can get new municipal issues underwritten by Fidelity Capital Markets.