Word: flatness
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...tracks sound even vaguely similar and this serves to liven up a lyrically simple album. When this music isn’t enough to carry the song, though, the lyrics are too thin to pick up the burden, and the track quickly falls flat. Most choruses are excessively simple—eight or nine word phrases that are repeated over and over again for the length of time necessary between equally short verses...
While most of the album is immediately likeable, the few songs which do fall flat tumble headfirst. Track two, “Keep You Beautiful,” is a disappointing departure from the more audacious tracks. The weak drum beats and timid, painfully repetitive guitar loops invoke a stupor perhaps appropriate to some hazy, dim-lit lounge, but they fail to sustain the energy of the opener. “Keep You Beautiful” also lacks the diversity of the album’s better tracks; while a vibraphone and triangle rescue it from complete monotony, the song...
Fidelity fired a salvo two weeks later, when it cut trade commissions to a flat fee of $7.95 from previous rates that ranged from $8 to $19.95 depending on trading volume and asset size. E*Trade, best known for its popular talking baby ads, joined the battle in early February when it trimmed equity-trading fees for low-volume investors to $9.99 from $12.99, although it still maintained a premium deal of $7.99 per trade for higher-volume customers. Scottrade stayed put, as it already offers flat $7 trading fees. (See the top 10 worst corporate name changes...
...ball is now in TD Ameritrade's court, a firm that has been gaining market share in recent years, with its flat $9.99 fee. In 2009, TD Ameritrade's daily average revenue [producing] trades rose 17% while Schwab's fell 2%, said Michael Hecht, an analyst at JMP Securities, in a recent note. "We were the one shop that had simple, straightforward, transparent pricing - one price point for all clients and there's no gimmick to it," says Tomczyk. "Clients don't like it when think they have one price and wind up getting nickeled and dimed to death...
...with rivals now offering a similar flat-rate policy - and at a lower rate - TD Ameritrade is likely feeling pressure to at least match its competitors' rates to maintain market share. "If TD Ameritrade starts to lose customers because of [pricing], obviously there's going to be some sensitivity to lowering their commission rates," says Joel Jeffrey, a vice president and analyst at Keefe, Bruyette & Woods...