I am new to trading options in a serious way, but I have now worked with IB and with thinkorswim and I want to put in a plug for thinkorswim's software. They just came out with a new release that is exceptional. It lets you do market studies with live charts, essentially a prophet.net subscription built in and integrated very well. Also, they have a new alerts feature that lets you set complex conditions that will trigger emails to you, and it is all well integrated. Their Java app crashes very rarely and is well-behaved. They are a fabulous company to deal with. I will say that I do have doubts about their clearing firm, only because they are heavily leveraged (Penson BTW) and I have doubts about any heavily leveraged clearing firm these days. I have no financial interest in them whatsoever but I hope they continue to succeed in the marketplace.
I'll second the TOS recommendation for retail options traders. Tom, Scott et al. are also very good guys. No financial interest here either, except as a customer.
what leveraging are you referring to? i have been with penson in at least one of my accounts for years. all the electronic brokers auto-liquidate customer positions these days and cash balances are in segregated accounts. tos also has additional private insurance over sipc, etc. what me worry?
Cognitivefun, I too, don't understand your comment about Penson- a clearing firm that is a member firm of SIPC should'nt be too much of a concern for there are worse worries to be had specifically trading worries. The equities sideof business is so heavily regulated that it is pretty hard to bring down a lcearing firm, a broker yes but a clearer possible not probable. plus there is SIPC.
Can anyone recommend a retail firm that 1.have electronic front end for options execution. 2. commish below .01 3.will recognize option poitions as part of the net liquidating account to determine whether a trader has the $25000 for PDT purposes. Other firms such as IB are probably bouded by their SRO which in the NYSE. NYSE I thinks says that any equity from option positions are taken off the $25000 so if you have 30K in the account and you buy 6K worth of options, you are UNDER the 25K. I know a while back NASD correspondent brokers include option positions when determining whether trader has > 25K. Any suggestions?
Here, here. I am a happy customer too. The greatest thing about TOS is, their desk guys will help you with a fill--without phone in charge--even for a one-lot spread order. I am waiting for OptionStation from TS to come up in ver8 and see how it measures up to TOS platform. But imo TS's trade desk guys will never measure up to TOS guys. tc