Brokerages & Trading Tools

kevin99 · Sep 10, 2013

sleepyhead said:
Kevin, I actually learned it from ongba and I have been doing this with LEAPS.

But for some reason I didn't do this with my weekly options last time, and then you pointed out that I could have done this. Don't know why it didn't cross my mind to do it with weeklies, so it was thanks to you I did it this time.

I am using this strategy for all of my calls now, whether long or short. I looked at my brokerage statement last month and it had more transactions than my phone bill has calls, lol. I showed it to my wife, who is a CPA and does our taxes, and told her: "these are the transactions you are going to have to type in for our tax return, and this is only for one month." She said that she is not typing those in, LOL.

All cool! Your next steps solving your good problem is:
1. find a brokerage that can import all your trading transaction into tax software. Mine works.
2. find a brokerage that can negotiate on the commission, including cost per trade, cost per contract, once you have some trading volume.

These are real problems for me and I got a handle on them before I increase my trading size.

TSLAopt · Sep 10, 2013

kevin99 said:
All cool! Your next steps solving your good problem is:
1. find a brokerage that can import all your trading transaction into tax software. Mine works.
2. find a brokerage that can negotiate on the commission, including cost per trade, cost per contract, once you have some trading volume.

These are real problems for me and I got a handle on them before I increase my trading size.

for extra credit is #3
Use a broker that gives you direct market access and gives the best execution quality as that is the hidden cost all the major retail brokers don't want you to know about. Over time and with lots of trades this cost can be heavily compounded to become very large to your return on your trading.
i may be partial because i work for a broker that I know is the best but if you want to do your own research try going to a forum like Day Trading - Day Trader - Automated Trading - Day Trading Software - EliteTrader.com to see what other traders much more experienced than us who have used all different brokers are saying

borat99 · Sep 11, 2013

kevin99 said:
I realize many people use Tapatalk on mobile will not see my signature. Here it is:

http://www.investnaire.com/?q=group...-i-made-1-million-single-day-tesla-investment

Nice. Thanks for sharing. Are you planning to write non-Telsa investing articles since you went with investnaire.com instead of teslanaire (even though the Tesla emblem is in the logo)? Specifically on TSLA, it would be great if you could write a post sharing your thought process on your options strategy for normal day-to-day kinda trading. Thanks again.

kevin99 said:
But I could not fathom how bad their software was back then, compare to other brokers. I wonder how they survive as a business.

Didn't they almost go bankrupt in 2008? I have the experience with them. Just park my ESPP shares there and use TD Ameritrade for everything else (loved thinkofswim).

justdoit · Sep 11, 2013

borat99 said:
Didn't they almost go bankrupt in 2008? I have the experience with them. Just park my ESPP shares there and use TD Ameritrade for everything else (loved thinkofswim).

Have heard lots of good things about TD Ameritrade and thinkorswim and want to give them a try. Using Fidelity and it's good but fees are too high for option trading. Looked at OptionsHouse but also didn't really like their tools. Don't know why most of the finance software out there is so crappy and not user friendly.

I usually just create an account with a new service without funding it and play with the software for a bit.

Mario Kadastik · Sep 11, 2013

justdoit said:
Have heard lots of good things about TD Ameritrade and thinkorswim and want to give them a try. Using Fidelity and it's good but fees are too high for option trading. Looked at OptionsHouse but also didn't really like their tools. Don't know why most of the finance software out there is so crappy and not user friendly.

I usually just create an account with a new service without funding it and play with the software for a bit.

Well I'm using interactive brokers and relatively happy. Well officially I'm using LHV which is an Estonian investment bank, but their backend and software is IB so I actually get their app from IB website

The only thing that really bogs me is the $4 / contract fee for options. The last few months my fees alone have been between 300-800 usd for an account of ~$25k and loads of day-trading. Dunno how big my monthly volumes would have to be to get lower per contract rates

Norbert · Sep 11, 2013

Mario Kadastik said:
Well I'm using interactive brokers and relatively happy. Well officially I'm using LHV which is an Estonian investment bank, but their backend and software is IB so I actually get their app from IB website The only thing that really bogs me is the $4 / contract fee for options. The last few months my fees alone have been between 300-800 usd for an account of ~$25k and loads of day-trading. Dunno how big my monthly volumes would have to be to get lower per contract rates

$4 is much higher than the normal IB fee (my last trade was $0.52 per contract).

Mario Kadastik · Sep 11, 2013

Norbert said:
$4 is much higher than the normal IB fee (my last trade was $0.52 per contract).

jeez, 8x price difference. I'm asking my brokers for a discount. Just checked and since April I've paid well over $2k in fees for ~500 contract trades.

justdoit · Sep 11, 2013

Mario Kadastik said:
jeez, 8x price difference. I'm asking my brokers for a discount. Just checked and since April I've paid well over $2k in fees for ~500 contract trades.

Ouch. Fidelity is 75 cents per contract. OptionsHouse is only 15cents. TD Ameritrade seems to be .75 cents also. Anyone able to get something lower?

Norbert · Sep 11, 2013

justdoit said:
Ouch. Fidelity is 75 cents per contract. OptionsHouse is only 15cents. TD Ameritrade seems to be .75 cents also. Anyone able to get something lower?

It's not just about the fee, also about how well they execute orders. (And other things.)

TSLAopt · Sep 11, 2013

Norbert said:
It's not just about the fee, also about how well they execute orders. (And other things.)

+100

IB is the only broker who sends your orders directly to the exchanges. All the others sell your orders to 'internalizers' who then can use your order as an 'option' for themselves and are only required to give you the fill after there is a print below your limit price for example. So with IB you will also get 'price improvement' n the highest percentage of orders as well. The first time you do some trades on IB's platform is a similar experience to the first time driving the Model S...you won't really understand how good it is compared to ICEs or appreciate it until you try it.

ongba · Sep 11, 2013

TSLAopt said:
+100

IB is the only broker who sends your orders directly to the exchanges. All the others sell your orders to 'internalizers' who then can use your order as an 'option' for themselves and are only required to give you the fill after there is a print below your limit price for example. So with IB you will also get 'price improvement' n the highest percentage of orders as well. The first time you do some trades on IB's platform is a similar experience to the first time driving the Model S...you won't really understand how good it is compared to ICEs or appreciate it until you try it.

Agree with all of the above. I switched from thinkorswim to IB for my taxable accounts about 2 years ago and haven't looked back. The desktop platform can be confusing at first, but learning to navigate it in order to receive the best execution and commissions is well worth it. Still have my retirement account with optionsxpress, which is good compared to most other brokerage firms, but can't hold a candle to IB.

Causalien · Sep 11, 2013

ongba said:
Agree with all of the above. I switched from thinkorswim to IB for my taxable accounts about 2 years ago and haven't looked back. The desktop platform can be confusing at first, but learning to navigate it in order to receive the best execution and commissions is well worth it. Still have my retirement account with optionsxpress, which is good compared to most other brokerage firms, but can't hold a candle to IB.

IB is awesome for their API.
TOS is still the most awesome for drawing narwhals on a chart.
Personally I say use both anyway since you'll need to spread your federal insurance amount on cash and asset.

twinklejet · Sep 11, 2013

So I was about to jump to TOS, and now I have to consider IB... IB is interactive brokers right?

- - - Updated - - -

And TSLA will apparently close above 161.88 today. Hmm......

ongba · Sep 11, 2013

twinklejet said:
So I was about to jump to TOS, and now I have to consider IB... IB is interactive brokers right?

- - - Updated - - -

And TSLA will apparently close above 161.88 today. Hmm......

yes, IB is interactive brokers. Like Causalien, I also kept my thinkorswim account to use their desktop platform for charting and options analysis. Thinkorswim's desktop platform is still the best, IMO, but IB beats it on commissions and executions.

Causalien · Sep 11, 2013

Also, I will never abandon my TOS account. It's a special one of a kind account that has been grandfathered down from when they were just a tiny bitsy Startup.

TSLAopt · Sep 11, 2013

ongba said:
Agree with all of the above. I switched from thinkorswim to IB for my taxable accounts about 2 years ago and haven't looked back. The desktop platform can be confusing at first, but learning to navigate it in order to receive the best execution and commissions is well worth it. Still have my retirement account with optionsxpress, which is good compared to most other brokerage firms, but can't hold a candle to IB.

Music to my ears ongba and others who use IB.

On another note, what I think as good news just published by Nasdaq! short interest increased by over 1mm shares between end of trading day on Aug 12th(147.38) and end of trading day on Aug 27th(167.01) and the price had gone up in that time frame almost 20 points despite the 1.3mm increase in shares held short during that time period.

on Tues Sept 24th after the close we will get the short interest as of the end of trading yesterday (sept 10th 166.37) so it will be interesting to see if the short interest was further increased to keep the price from rising over the past two weeks and if so by how much.

kevin99 · Sep 11, 2013

ongba said:
Thinkorswim's desktop platform is still the best, IMO, but IB beats it on commissions and executions.

ongba, do you have real life order comparisons that gives you this conclusion IB's executions is better? I have yet to find the time to do that. I know TSLAOpt includes some 3rd party result but I like to hear from live example. What I plan to do is place two option rolling limit order in both TD and IB to see which one get executed first. Or place option roll market order to see the actual price filled. If you have done something like that, (does not have to be option roll, any order will do), I will be all ears to learn your finding.

ongba · Sep 11, 2013

Kevin,

i haven't done it with thinkorswim in awhile (as I only have a minimal account balance with them currently), but did test it a couple years ago when I switched. IB execution was faster and commissions were cheaper than thinkorswim when I made the switch. I still have an optionxpress account which I trade my retirement funds with. I have placed trades nearly simultaneously with IB and optionxpress, and IB always fills faster with better fills and a cheaper commission. Looking to move my retirement account to IB by the end of the year. Also, I trade primarily on my ipad with LTE and IB's tablet platform is much faster the optionsxpress' app.

Jonathan Hewitt · Sep 11, 2013

When people switch brokerages is there a way to move your securities? or do you have to sell everything and then rebuy everything in the other account?

TSLAopt · Sep 11, 2013

Jonathan Hewitt said:
When people switch brokerages is there a way to move your securities? or do you have to sell everything and then rebuy everything in the other account?

Good question, You can easily move everything over with their cost basis intact. It's called an ACAT transfer (Automated Customer Account Transfer) and takes about 3-5 business days to process. It is suggested you do not trade during that process and if it includes options then not to do it during options expiration week.

Brokerages & Trading Tools

Member

Active Member

Member

Member

Active Member

TSLA will win

Active Member

Member

TSLA will win

Active Member

Member

Prime 8 ball Oracle

Member

Member

Prime 8 ball Oracle

Active Member

Member

Member

Active Member

Active Member

Similar threads