Public noted AMTD,OXPS,SWIM are pure agent of principals (no income from proprietary trading,no proprietary account) You can check source of income 10-k by www.sec.gov AMTD is pure agent after selling interess in NITE All 3 offer direct routing for stock and options (OXPS on request without charge) for mutliple exchange . All 3 offer html ,java and downloading version (AMTD and OXPS Quotetracker from J.Medwed top support ) AMTD Reg .T account 2000 $ minimum,OXPS 0 ,SWIM 2500 $ AMTD clear through AMTD , OXPS through Legent ,SWIM through Penson . All offer SIPC protected account ,SWIM offer possibility to switch money after future positions closed to SIPC account Market value is some 700 mln $ for SWIM and more for OXPS and AMTD ( approx 10 bil $) AMTD offer promoution for options ,SWIM offer mutiple promoutions AMTD and SWIM offer extended trading ,OXPS not AMTD offer not the future ,OXPS and SWIM offer that . From security point of view -technology,legal and some kind trader disciplin (not put all in one position,with 3 accounts is possible ,but psyhologicaly mre rare as with one ) - Better to have 3 accounts by each of mentioned companies . Occassionaly exist techology problem by each of mentioned companies ,but author not observed sinxronn problem by two Author have had legal problem with CEO SWIM,but to date have not any problem with AMTD and OXPS . Your respectfully IBKR is not pure agent (through TMWD market -maker ) and demanded more high account minimum .
QUOTETRACKER by Jerry Medved is really the key! It is FREE to all TD Ameritrade clients and is supported by the TD Ameritrade "streamer" data-feed. All you need is to open a $2,000 account with TD Ameritrade. The charting apps in QuoteTracker are extremely impressive . . . they come with an amazing amount of useful technical analysis tools; everything from pivots to moving averages, MACD, candlesticks, point and figure, you name it! There is also a very convenient "linked" functionability aspect to QuoteTracker too . . . Time and sales, options chains, news from Dow Jones or Business Wire, etc. If you are still using TD Ameritrade's "Apex" or "Command Center," I think that you might be missing out on a very POWERFUL trading tool, with QuoteTracker. Meanwhile, you can still get 4:1 margin intra-day like most retail firms, with 2:1 overnight. SIPC insured, interest on your balance, etc. Flat-rate commissions are attractive if you do SIZE. And don't let the $9.95 "advertised" rate scare you. You can negotiate to a much lower commission quite easily with a simple phone call. This might also be an attractive "option" for those of you that are subscribing to E-Signal, Realtick, or TradeStation for their charting packages and are looking for the same features for ZERO cost. Furthermore, the latest Beta version of QuoteTracker ( as of March 30th ) just came out with 20 days of intra-day charting data; an increase from the previous 10 days of data. I have found the charting to be pretty damn impressive! www.quotetracker.com Oh, and did I mention that it was FREE? Just my 2 cents.
I would like to share the following incident with TD Ameritrade & protest how this is handled. As I mentioned before my trading partner places large block orders, and I am able to monitor his orders on Level 2 from another platform. It has now happend several times that he places a large block order to buy at e.g. $20.50, but TD Ameritrade first submits the order at e.g. $20.46, waits a few seconds, then they begin to move the order a bit higher--meanwhile giving plenty of "warning time" for those selling to get out of the way. I feel this practice is totally unfair to the customer and would like to hear some explanation for this.
I have 5 accounts at different places, and I always end up using Ameritrade because its the cheapest on commissions, and when I enter a trade it executes without any trouble. In the 6 years I've had the account I've had 2 or 3 trades out of 10,000 or 12,000 that I had to call and complain about.
Landis, this is very useful information that I will follow up on. I have roughly 10% of my money with AMTD (Apex) and use Command Center all day for my streaming. I set up multiple watch lists that I scroll through depending on what I need to see. I can then use another PC to enter the bulk of my trades in another account with lower fees. So far I've been very pleased with Command Center with the exception of some small quirks with the way symbols randomly will not "remember" my sort order. Over the last few days I have been learning Strategy Desk. This puppy seems to do it all. I've been using it for some real-time charting. As a technician, I'm also impressed with the strategy building platform. Very robust...but I'm gonna need more time to really experiment and sink my teeth into it. Do you have any experience with Strategy Desk?
the way they calculate margin does not favor day traders. if you use your whole account to long spy, then sell it 5 minutes later, you can only buy spy one more time that day before you run out of margin. the margin is not calculated realtime like IB/ scottrade.
yEAH 4 to 1 intraday margins, you can buy and sell an amount equal to your account value 4 times, or less if you carry margin overnight. but everytime you make a trade, the "day trading buying power" goes down, until it is 0, then you cannot buy and sell anymore. so it is not possible to buy and sell an amount equal to your account value, more than 4 times in a day. not convenient for scalpers/ day traders.