Consolidation in the online brokerage industry continues: Ameritrade announced plans to acquire TD Waterhouse for nearly $3 billion after shaking off an earlier acquisition offer from E-Trade. The combined entity, to be known as TD Ameritrade, will become the largest online broker with 239,000 average daily client trades; annual revenue of more than $1.8 billion and about 5.9 million total accounts.

Forbes has more on the musical chairs in the online brokerage industry, which left E-Trade standing as the only one without an online brokerage partner. Forbes hints, though, that the bulked up TD Ameritrade may make a run for E-Trade sometime in the future, creating a mega-supersized online broker.