There's No Free Trading Lunch -- More Online Brokers Turning to Fees

Under pressure to add more and more services but also boost the bottom line, newfangled online brokerages are turning to an age-old Wall Street practice -- fees.

TD Waterhouse (TWE Quote) and E*Trade (EGRP Quote) say they plan to institute a $15 quarterly fee on brokerage accounts with less than $5,000 in assets at the end of this year.

In TD Waterhouse's case, customers who make more than four trades over 12 months will be exempt from the "inactivity" fee. Previously, the New York based brokerage owned by Canada's Toronto Dominion Bank (TD Quote) had a $1,000 minimum to open an account and no quarterly fee. Customers can combine multiple TD Waterhouse accounts to meet those minimums. At E*Trade, customers with combined assets among accounts of $20,000 or who make one trade in a six-month period can avoid the fee. ...