10-second breakdown:
Not for the faint of heart, TradeStation was made for the diehard investor who has a deep understanding of the markets and portfolio. Lots of advanced tools and a required number of trades to hit in order to avoid fees. A great options for those heavily active day traders out there.
The good:
One of the deepest analysis and research systems in all of online stock trading. Capabilities like chart customization with well over 100 different indicators and charts that can go back up to 40 years on a given stock. You won’t be bored, but you will have to know how to use it all.
The program itself is flexible and allows for certain third party modifications and enhancements to build a system that you can really use.
This tool is made for the professional investor which is a big bonus for someone wanting to avoid the “beginner” style of so many online brokers.
The bad:
Unless you trade a minimum of 5,000 shares per month, or have an account balance of $100,000 you’ll have to fork over nearly $100 each month until you meet those requirements.
Fees are a bit higher than the discount services, but fall in line with many of the flagship brokers.
How it works:
There are so many reasons to love TradeStation, especially if you invest everyday. No matter how diversified your portfolio is, the action can be found with this broker. Again, it’s not for the beginner or even casual investor. The terms are serious business to guarantee only certain people are attracted to the platform.
To get an account started, you’ll need a minimum of $5,000 (the highest of brokers we’ve reviewed) and you’ll need to trade 5,000 or more shares each and every month to avoid the $99.95 monthly fee (you could also have $100,000 in your portfolio to avoid the fee). Much of the info needed is the same and you’ll be guided on a process like opening up other financial accounts.
After you’re approved, it’s game on. Investment options include stocks, options, forex and futures which will appeal to those who love to put their money across multiple opportunities. However, their stock/options trading is definitely the highlight of the company.
Once you’re ready to start your research, you may be a bit overwhelmed. The site itself claims to have “hundreds of products that amplify the power of TradeStation”. That said, you’ll have to take your time going through the list of offerings (many free, but some are paid) to build the investing machine of your dreams.
TradeStation still operates primarily off of a desktop platform. A web-based alternative is available, but the capabilities are bare bones and it’s not what most of their customers use, except in the event they are away from their desks. The desktop version is geared for those who stare at the streams all day and it can be tweaked to allow for a multi-monitor setup.
It’s entirely customizable to suit your needs, and the number of add-ons is daunting to begin with. Give it an honest go and you’ll be giddy by the time you start seeing the potential platform you can create.
Just a few of the add-ons include “Person Pivots Daily”, an algorithm to calculate the projected Daily Pivot Point Support & Resistance numbers (a helpful free tool for highly-active traders), “Eclipse” a tool that helps accredited trading pros recognize intraday trends ($99/mo), and “Ichimoku Indicators” an analysis tool that can spot trends to help refine your plans (it’s free as well). There are literally dozens of different tools, here’s a link to their category page for all the products.
These tools aren’t for your weekend retirement account on-the-side type of investment strategy. Many of the tools attract successful day traders and hedge fund managers, which should give you a clear picture of whether or not it’s for you. We are talking deep analysis capabilities for individuals who understand what is happening to a given equity based on the numbers they see.
To get even more geeky with it, TradeStation has an open-source style (called “EasyLanguage”) to allow third-party developers and users to create new apps/tools to share them with the rest of the community. This sort of creative permission has allowed some of the best charting tools and analytic devices to come about and they are exclusively available through TradeStation.
Side Note: You can even sell your creations in the open marketplace (called the TradeStation TradingApp Store). Although, if it’s that good you’ll want to keep it for yourself, right?
If options are your primary strategy, there is a program within the TradeStation framework that is just for you. It’s called “OptionStation Pro” and will potentially revolutionize your trades. One of the neatest things is the ability to view data in both 2D and 3D (a feature only seen through this broker). The data available is also some of the best around with real-time streaming Greek and analytics that help make the best strategy (like theoretical forecasts, expiration assistance, and customizable data sets).
The last “warning” we can give you is that this platform isn’t for casual investors. Even if you fancy yourself a seasoned, part-time day trader; we beg you to take an honest evaluation to see if you can use the platform to it’s full potential.
If so, there really aren’t any other platforms that speak to the top 5%-10% of self-investors as well as TradeStation does. If you’ve got the ambition (and minimum account opening balance), it very well could be the broker for you.
For complete rankings of all online trading platforms, go here.
http://authority.org/online-stock-trading/tradestation/ http://authorityorg.tumblr.com/post/150484005412
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