Buyout would benefit you

Article Excerpt

TD BANK, $75.26, is still a buy. Investors in the bank (Toronto symbol TD; Shares outstanding: 1.8 billion; Market cap: $136.3 billion; TSINetwork Rating: Above Average; Dividend yield: 3.9%; www.td.com) benefit from its roughly 42% stake in TD Ameritrade Holding Corp (Nasdaq symbol AMTD). It’s one of the largest online brokerage firms in the U.S. TD Ameritrade’s chief rival, Charles Schawb Corp. (New York symbol SCHW), has now eliminated commissions for buying and selling stocks, ETFs and options listed on U.S. or Canadian exchanges. In response, TD Ameritrade matched that policy. Commissions supply about 25% of its revenue, which is why its stock dropped roughly 25%. The shift to zero commissions will hurt TD Bank in two ways—it will lower income from TD Ameritrade, and cut the value of that holding. However, it’s possible that TD Bank could take advantage of TD Ameritrade’s lower stock price by offering to buy the 58% of shares it doesn’t already own. That would cost roughly $14 billion U.S., which is small…