Online Trading Platform

[Abdel]

I'm currently using HSBC's InvestDirect trading platform and I want to switch to a better one.

Any recommendations?

 

[D C]

What online broker do you use? And why? Do you use specific online brokers for equities and others for options etc? What are currently the best spreads?

 

[D C]

Abdel :: what did you settle on? How do you think the below stands up?

http://www.brokerage-review.com/articles/barrons-2011-broker-survey.aspx

 

[Abdel]

Abdel :: what did you settle on? How do you think the below stands up?

http://www.brokerage-review.com/articles/barrons-2011-broker-survey.aspx

Still looking.

I will make my final decision in a week or two (been pretty busy lately!).

'Will keep you updated.

 

[tenaciousj]

I'm going to start trading with about $1,350 [I know, not much] and I was wondering what are the best online brokerage firms for a beginner but I'm not hopeless, I have some sense of what I'm doing?

 

[Joe Ross]

I have not personally used it but ThinkorSwim.com is supposedly the best out there right now, especially for options trading.

 

[Mini-Dow]

http://online-stock-trading-review.toptenreviews.com/

Personally, I think OptionXpress would suffice (if you're not trading Forex). OptionsHouse would also be great as they provide free coaching if you deposit an amount they specified; however, note that OptionsHouse does not provide Level II Quotes. Good luck.

 

[Ivan_Milken]

The best out there (in my opinion), is the NinjaTrader/Mirus/ZenFire trio, but that isn't for a beginner. ThinkorSwim is by no means the best, but it is very good for a beginner. For options trading the best is OptionsHouse.

 

[Joe Ross]

The best out there (in my opinion), is the NinjaTrader/Mirus/ZenFire trio, but that isn't for a beginner. ThinkorSwim is by no means the best, but it is very good for a beginner. For options trading the best is OptionsHouse.

That's what I meant, thanks for clarifying. ThinkorSwim has good training information available, which is what he seemed to be asking for.

 

[DoubleTrouble]

For options trading the best is OptionsHouse.

I wish they would let Europeans use it as well!

 

[Tsotne]

Have anyone of you guys thought about chaining a software holding your investment logic to any of the above suggested brokerage firms? I was thinking about it for a while and decided to construct something like the following and I wonder your opinions if I'm not deviating from OP's interests.

Imagine a software involving some investment theories (like Markowitz Portfolio Selection theory) running 24 hours a day and executing your predefined logic of investment decisions granting you the ability to inject new ones from time to time. There might seem nothing new but how widely used is such automated home-owned software system giving orders to the brokerage houses without your direct interventions? Or is it more convenient to manually recalculate the profit maximizations every time you need to place another order?

 

[vincegata]

Only few brokers offer API, Interactive Brokers is one of them.

 

[Tsotne]

I saw Interactive Brokers' WebTrader and I got the feeling of insufficiency since it does only allow you to manage your portfolio from the technical point of view, meaning that you can place limit-buy, limit-sell orders, order deferrals, etc. and it's nothing new, but it doesn't give you the ability to build your own logic of investment automatically. On WebTrader platform you can trade shares only after having manually suffered from reconstructing the portfolio realizing good/bad news released, share price movements, correlations changed, etc. But what if you had that logic already implemented into the software doing all those work on behalf of you? Like for example I always construct (and rebalance) a portfolio investment logic according to the XYZ theory. Having automated this theory saves you time and computational hell everytime you need to buy/sell shares if the outcome of your hand-calculating is to be the same.

 

[vincegata]

Not the webtrader, look for API on their website. Using broker's API and not a platform you can develop your automated strategies. Also, search this forum for Interactive Brokers, they used to have automated trading competition and some students on this forum participated.

 

[darth]

Has anyone availed the services of advantage futures?
http://www.advantagefutures.com/Home.html

 

[Corey Rowell]

I've been looking at flex Trade, just wanted to see what others use or can recommend

 

[Tsotne]

Search computing section of the forum. There must be several threads about it.

 

[Eugene Krel]

I've been looking at flex Trade, just wanted to see what others use or can recommend

Unless you are thinking about a different flex Trade, it's not free or even relatively cheap.

 

[Joy Pathak]

I have used Interactive Broker before. The API is decent and is flexible in terms of what language you want to use. I used it at a hedge fund i was working at. They do have the tighest spreads out there especially in options. I use ThinkorSwim now (only 4 brokers are allowed by my firm). IB is not a beginner platform.

 

[vegahedge]

Sorry to revive an old thread. Although Thinkorswim's (TOS) pricing isn't competitive, I haven't yet found any other online brokerage platform that provides a real time risk profile of your positions like TOS has. I'm referring to the graphical drawing of your current position.

I'd really like to be independent from TOS if possible, so does anyone have a good recommendation for a professional quality software for options (but includes stock/futures) that works something like TOS, but will work with say, Interactive Brokers?

The only alternative out there I know of is OptionVue, and it's a software dinosaur.