The news of Charles Schwab's offer for Ameritrade caught the industry off guard, although it is not entirely unexpected, given that Charles Schwab was first to introduce zero fees for retail transactions and Ameritrade was the second to follow suit. The offer to pay approximately $25 billion for Ameritrade signals that the trading business is going not only through pricing changes, but also through consolidation. Should the merger take place, the new entity would be composed of some $5.1 trillion in assets, with $3.8 billion coming from Schwab and $1.3 billion from Ameritrade.
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