TradeKing is a discount broker with high-level research tools

10-second breakdown:

Discount broker pricing with tools, customer service and research capabilities that run with the major players. TradeKing is one of the fastest up and coming platforms available on the market.

The good:

This is a discount broker and they don’t disappoint in the pricing department. You’d be hard-pressed to find a less expensive way to trade stock and options. Even multi-leg option trades are priced as a single leg, saving you more money on complex action.

TradeKing Live is an intuitive and highly functional trading platform that beats all the other discount brokers and can even give the top-of-the-line names a run for their money.

No account minimums means that you can trade with just a little bit of money. Pair that with the low cost of buying and selling and you’ve got a nice budget option. There is an annual fee, but that can be avoided under certain circumstances.

The bad:

There is an inactivity fee. If you don’t make at least one trade or hold an account balance of $2500, you’ll have to fork over a $50 annual charge.

Mutual funds and ETF’s have higher fees with TradeKing than other platforms.

How it works:

Overall, TradeKing feels more like a top brand trading platform more than a discount broker. From the customer service to the research tools, there just isn’t another option for the value you get here in a lot of ways.

No account minimums means that once you fill out the quick account setup and get approved (basic info like your social will be required) you can hit the gates and start researching. With the mobile world we now live in, it has been a high priority for this platform to catch up. While it’s been a struggle in the past, they have finally hit a groove and came out with a responsive trading platform that is web-based and useful on just about any smart device.

Their responsive platform is called “TradeKing Live” and is getting better all the time.

You’ll notice that the researching capabilities through this broker are solid. The charting and other tools are both pretty to look at and effective in helping you make decisions. The graphs have a pretty nifty overlay system that can help you identify trends and potential spikes/falls without just looking at a simple line of data.

The amount of intel that you get when looking at a given stock is impressive. There are tabs for all of the normal data including a chart, options, news, and several others. In-depth research can include the profit and loss amongst other data points and a column for trends to help you trace any potential trading opportunities. For the deep researcher there is even a function that allows you to test your theories and compare them to live data to help you figure out a broad strategy over time.

The dashboard in “Live” is very customizable (with a few exceptions). Getting quotes to stream just about anywhere you want is fairly simple and there are several other items to keep you in the know about your portfolio. Making a trade on the fly can be done on any page with the “trade ticket” widget (located on the right sidebar in your dashboard). That same dashboard is going to look like tiles (similar to the newer Microsoft operating system). It may not be as sleek as others, but it is definitely easy to understand.

There isn’t a particular trade style that stands out with this platform. Anyone in it for the long-haul and make at least one trade every year (to avoid the fee) would enjoy the tools as much as the highly-active investor. Options and day traders will enjoy the low costs and there are multiple advantages to having all the legs of your options play being counted as one (could mean pennies instead of dollars every trade).

Note: If you’ve used TradeKing in the past, but weren’t impressed; it may be time for a second look. The whole site has been revamped over the past 24 months or so and has become incredibly intuitive and super helpful.

As far as getting third-party research reporting goes, there is only one opinion available on TradeKing. Although, it is the very credible source of Standard & Poor’s. While this may sound like a limited scope, multiple inputs can often times conflict. It is good to have some contrast, but with the low fee structure offered by this broker; there isn’t a lot of budget for multiple high-cost research giants.

Even though you don’t have every major player giving you advice and news, it is worth noting that the community in TradeKing is really one of the best things about them. Forums, blogs, and active users who are sharing their trades and why they made them in the first place. It may not be as active as it used to be, but it’s still worth a trip to see what investors are talking about.

Customer service is one of the strongest selling points with this company. When they started, their users were the focus of their growth. You can tell that a lot of time and attention goes into their training for reps.

There are both iOS and Android apps for the mobile trader, but don’t expect more than the basics of monitoring your current portfolio, a bit of research, and making trades via your smart device. TradeKing Live is also meant to be responsive, so if you have a great 4G connection (or Wifi) just go straight to the platform itself.

TradeKing is a discount broker for just about anyone. The research tools aren’t enough to put them on par with some of the best (like say, TD Ameritrade), but they are a far cry better than the other low-cost offers on the market. The platform is getting better and it could be our favorite in the near future.

For complete rankings of all online trading platforms, go here.

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