Brokers and commissions

[sakura]

Lynx is just a company trying to market IB in Europe. You would be far better of doing business directly with IB. But apparantly Lynx has leverage on you. I would run away as fast as possible. 
 

having said that: opening an account with TOS is easy for Europeans. Just look it up on TD Ameritrade’s site. If you fund it enough and have sufficient trade volume you can bargain a rate of 0.65 per contract. That’s what I do. BTW full disclosure: I am with IB as well. 

european brokers are just too expensive.

Edited May 7, 2020 by sakura

[Djtux]

An article from Bloomberg about Interactive Brokeres and the negative oil price :

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-05-08/oil-crash-busted-a-broker-s-computers-and-inflicted-huge-losses

If you hit the paywall, it's here as well : http://archive.is/EGIGB

[rasar]

5 minutes ago, Djtux said:

An article from Bloomberg about Interactive Brokeres and the negative oil price :

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-05-08/oil-crash-busted-a-broker-s-computers-and-inflicted-huge-losses

If you hit the paywall, it's here as well : http://archive.is/EGIGB

😮 I almost threw up just reading about that trader. I can only imagine the rolls of TP the poor guy must have gone through !

[RapperT]

Wow,  that’s wild 

[MH74]

I’m very interested in opening an account with Tradier.

Here in Europe this Broker is quite unknown. Therefore I've some questions:

• What about the safety of Tradier?
• What happens to my investments/money if Tradier goes bankrupt?
• Is there any deposit insurance?
• Is Tradier SEC regulated?
• What about a tax report?
• What is there to say about the trading system?
  

I’m happy and grateful for any answers.

[Kim]

2 hours ago, MH74 said:

I’m very interested in opening an account with Tradier.

Here in Europe this Broker is quite unknown. Therefore I've some questions:

 

 

• What about the safety of Tradier?
• What happens to my investments/money if Tradier goes bankrupt?
• Is there any deposit insurance?
• Is Tradier SEC regulated?
• What about a tax report?
• What is there to say about the trading system?

   

I’m happy and grateful for any answers.

 

 

I believe you can find the answers in  Tradier Brokerage Special Offer topic. A lot of our members are using Tradier, I think it is as safe as other brokers.

[dsigma]

On 5/7/2020 at 9:10 PM, sakura said:

Lynx is just a company trying to market IB in Europe. You would be far better of doing business directly with IB. But apparantly Lynx has leverage on you. I would run away as fast as possible. 
 

having said that: opening an account with TOS is easy for Europeans. Just look it up on TD Ameritrade’s site. If you fund it enough and have sufficient trade volume you can bargain a rate of 0.65 per contract. That’s what I do. BTW full disclosure: I am with IB as well. 

european brokers are just too expensive.

Were you able to open account with Ameritrade from the netherlands? Tradier also does not allow me to open an account from NL.

I am still waiting for Lynx to respond to my emails why they fees are 3x what IB in US/UK. Forced to move to tastyworks, so far paying 1/3 in commissions. Only keeping long stock in IB and using options to buy US ETF's, which cannot be bought directly in Europe. 

@MH74, 

Change the broker, otherwise the commissions are going to eat most of your gains (if not all).  

 

[MH74]

52 minutes ago, dsigma said:

@MH74, 

Change the broker, otherwise the commissions are going to eat most of your gains (if not all).  

 

 

 

Yes, you're right.

For equity trading Lynx is a good broker with fees that are ok. But for option trading it's far too expensive. For me as a citizen and resident of Liechtenstein it's quite difficult to find a good broker (in the US). One possibility is Tradier. I'm not yet sure about the quality of its web platform (Dash). I want to use it because I don't want to pay for another platform.

 

Edited May 10, 2020 by MH74

[sakura]

1 hour ago, dsigma said:

Were you able to open account with Ameritrade from the netherlands? 

 

 

Yes. And with IB as well. Did not try tradier. 

[Bull3t007]

20 hours ago, dsigma said:

Were you able to open account with Ameritrade from the netherlands? Tradier also does not allow me to open an account from NL.

 I am still waiting for Lynx to respond to my emails why they fees are 3x what IB in US/UK. Forced to move to tastyworks, so far paying 1/3 in commissions. Only keeping long stock in IB and using options to buy US ETF's, which cannot be bought directly in Europe. 

 @MH74, 

Change the broker, otherwise the commissions are going to eat most of your gains (if not all).  

 

 

Did you contact Tradier and they told you accounts from the Netherlands were not allowed?

[dsigma]

3 hours ago, Bull3t007 said:

Did you contact Tradier and they told you accounts from the Netherlands were not allowed?

I have not contacted them, when trying to open the account, I cannot go further not being US Citizen or permanent resident.

[CJ912]

3 minutes ago, dsigma said:

I have not contacted them, when trying to open the account, I cannot go further not being US Citizen or permanent resident.

Give them a call, I would be surprised if they can't open accounts for The Netherlands. I got a special set of documents for international account openings when I opened my account with them. 

[MH74]

10 minutes ago, dsigma said:

I have not contacted them, when trying to open the account, I cannot go further not being US Citizen or permanent resident.

Tradier does accept clients form Europe. Write them an email and ask.

If they accept clients from the Netherlands, they will send you a link to DocuSign where you can complete the paperwork to apply for an international account.

[dsigma]

Thanks! 

[yelmalem]

Hey, does anybody here use ToS to place trades? It looks like their pricing structure for options is $0.00 per trade and $0.65/contract. Isn't that equivalent to IB's rates?

Does anybody here recommend ToS over IB? Have you ever negotiated contract rates with ToS and how cheap will they go based on your account size?

[rasar]

Just now, yelmalem said:

Hey, does anybody here use ToS to place trades? It looks like their pricing structure for options is $0.00 per trade and $0.65/contract. Isn't that equivalent to IB's rates?

Does anybody here recommend ToS over IB? Have you ever negotiated contract rates with ToS and how cheap will they go based on your account size?

Yes to all.😁

[Skimoviestar]

FWIW, over the course of time and multiple promises to add to the net liq of my account at TOS and trade more, I have been able to get down to $0.50 per contract.

[Gen88]

I use trader and noticing the Rho app when scrolling down through the app is very slow. I’m wondering is anyone experiencing this same issue or just me? Thanks!

[Bull3t007]

I am not able to login into Tradier. Both Tradehawk and the website. Anyone that could check wheter this is the same for them?

[MH74]

Just now, Bull3t007 said:

I am not able to login into Tradier. Both Tradehawk and the website. Anyone that could check wheter this is the same for them?

I've the same problem. Just wrote an email to their service...

[Bull3t007]

5 minutes ago, MH74 said:

I've the same problem. Just wrote an email to their service...

Removed*

Edited June 11, 2020 by Bull3t007

[MH74]

Just got the answer

 

Hello Martin,

 

Tradier Brokerage is currently working through the finalization of a technology update this morning.  We do expect the website to be accessible well in advance of the market open.  We apologize for any inconvenience.

 

Sincerely,

[Bull3t007]

Just now, MH74 said:

Just got the answer

 

Hello Martin,

 

 

 

 

 

Tradier Brokerage is currently working through the finalization of a technology update this morning.  We do expect the website to be accessible well in advance of the market open.  We apologize for any inconvenience.

 

 

 

 

 

Sincerely,

 

 

Jup got the same. 

[Bull3t007]

Its ten minutes before open and I still can't login. I understand that updates need to happen but why not do it during the weekend. This is pushing it a bit as I want to modify orders before the market opens. 

[rasar]

Seems to be back up now....

[ales19]

yes, back up now. but definitely poor timing on their part to roll out an update. i guess we get what we pay for! 🤦‍♂️😂

[Yowster]

25 minutes ago, Bull3t007 said:

Its ten minutes before open and I still can't login. I understand that updates need to happen but why not do it during the weekend. This is pushing it a bit as I want to modify orders before the market opens. 

This is quite surprising as someone cominng from an IT background...

• Longer downtime should be scheduled for weekends, not ending 10 minutes before market opens.
• Downtime should be avoidable in most cases nowadays, outside of possibly a quick blip.   Redundant, high availability systems should allow for rolling updates to prevent downtime.

[Bull3t007]

So just got off a call with Tradier and my DIS order executed at 12.5 instead of the 13.4 or even 13.3 its now. Bit of dent in my trust with Tradier. 

 

@Yowster It is really weird. 

Edited June 11, 2020 by Bull3t007

[ales19]

Hopefully they are not becoming the new Robinhood!

[rasar]

7 minutes ago, Yowster said:

This is quite surprising as someone cominng from an IT background...

• Longer downtime should be scheduled for weekends, not ending 10 minutes before market opens.
• Downtime should be avoidable in most cases nowadays, outside of possibly a quick blip.   Redundant, high availability systems should allow for rolling updates to prevent downtime.

From a similar IT background, it would appear they suffered an unplanned outage. Their lack of transparency, though, is disturbing, considering this is an active trading platform, not some entertainment site. Definitely very disappointing.

[CJ912]

Seems they're offline again. Apparently it was a failed deployment of a downstream back-office system that caused a number of issues across the platform.

 

When I was still the co-owner of a small IT firm back in the late 90s, we suffered one outage of a couple of hours and instantly decided that we would double our redundancy and from then on had 99.99% uptime. If we could do that as a very small outfit, I'm surprised taht this happens to Tradier. I know one of thier developpers a bit, let's see if he can tell me a bit more....

[agsb]

And it went down again.

[ales19]

yep, they are down again, this is strike 1, i just put them on notice!

[Bull3t007]

Does anyone still have issuess regarding their balance, standing orders and positions?

In the morning it showed I had a significant lower balance with the official SO trade reversed. So short straddle and long strangle with a signficant loss. Now it shows the opposite (official SO trade still open). Even though they confirmed my closing order filled yesterday. 

So now I may still have the DIS position open but I don't know for sure. I can place an order to close. 

Called Tradier at 8 am eastern time and they mentioned positions are put back in place but it seems that already happened in the morning. Plus they said it will be fixed within 45 minutes after I placed the call, been almost an hour now. 

Incredibly confusing and a bit frustrating.....

 

Edit: Called again and they are still fixing it for anyone wondering. 

Edit2: Seems to be fixed now. 

Edited June 12, 2020 by Bull3t007

[MH74]

8 minutes ago, Bull3t007 said:

Does anyone still have issuess regarding their balance, standing orders and positions?

In the morning it showed I had a significant lower balance with the official SO trade reversed. So short straddle and long strangle with a signficant loss. Now it shows the opposite (official SO trade still open). Even though they confirmed my closing order filled yesterday. 

So now I may still have the DIS position open but I don't know for sure. I can place an order to close. 

Called Tradier at 8 am eastern time and they mentioned positions are put back in place but it seems that already happened in the morning. Plus they said it will be fixed within 45 minutes after I placed the call, been almost an hour now. 

Incredibly confusing and a bit frustrating.....

 

Edit: Called again and they are still fixing it for anyone wondering. 

My portfolio is in order. However, I expect tradier to take a stand on the incident.

[Wandering]

My Tradier portfolio also seems to be in order.  I do wish they would be straightforward about what really happened.

[Chris Lepore]

Hi Everyone, Chris here at Tradier Brokerage. Please accept our apologies for the issues we encountered yesterday. Our technology team posted more details about what had occurred and what we're planning to do to prevent this in the future. You can find that post available here:  https://documentation.tradier.com/status. Thank you for your continued support and if you have any account questions or concerns please do not hesitate to reach out to us.

[Djtux]

Just want to put my comment here because of a new story i saw on Twitter.

Quote

That's what i said publicly. I am a happy Robinhood customer and a happy IB customer. But as i said multiple times, i would only recommend Robinhood for stocks or single leg long options trades. Trading multilegs (even basic spreads) options on RH is just asking to be screwed by them. There are multiple ways they might screw you unintentionally.

For multilegs option trading, i suggest you look elsewhere (i personally use IB for that as an example).

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/finance-isnt-worth-losing-your-life-over-the-heartbreaking-story-of-a-rookie-trader-who-racked-up-700000-in-debt-2020-06-14

We don't know the full story, but my guess is a multi leg option strategy with margins not calculated properly.

[Rumple4skin]

does anybody use Fidelity Investments for their options trades? It looks like they've lowered their commission to $0 + $.65/contract to compete with ToS and IB. I'm curious to see if anyone uses them and see what their experience has been getting filled on trades. Thank you. 

[slego]

I use fidelity and feel i get really good fills usually always just as good as official alerts or better, although there may be some luck involved when getting better fills, down to timing really. Im trading with 20k account, although i would like to know how it would be with a 100k account, as I’m getting more comfortable with options i do want to go bigger. If anyone else trades a larger account size with fidelity i would like to know. 
 

i was also able to negotiate down to a commission of 0.50$ per contract after a few months of trading with them. 
 

also i love the interface and tools available with fidelity. The app is ok too. Always able to do four legs trades which i have seen some aren’t with other brokerages. I have considered tradier for the 10$ per month deal which would save a ton although I have a hard time leaving fidelity as it’s what I’ve been become accustomed to. 

[Rumple4skin]

SLEGO, 

super helpful response. thank you. 

the key phrase from your response: "i get really good fills usually always just as good as official alerts or better". 

i've only been with SO a short time, but I feel order execution is critical to success. If you lose 2-3% on entry and 2-3% on exit and then add commissions, you'll have a hard time being successful. On my paper trading, I allow myself a 1-1.5% allowance on the official printed trade price. If I can't get within 1-1.5% of that price, I don't do the trade.  Over time, the price slippage will eat into your returns significantly, that's why order entry and execution is critical. 

I've been with Fidelity for 20+ years and was frankly shocked that they were offering such competitive pricing on options trading. Their trade execution has always been excellent and I believe it's a function of their size and history. I'm glad to hear that you've had a positive experience with them. I think I will use them once I go LIVE.

 

[zxcv64]

I was curious about Fidelity, so right now I'm on their online-chat asking if a UK based resident can open an account :

 

 

LOL! 

Edited June 17, 2020 by zxcv64

[QuickNick]

Contact this guy listed below if you want options trading fees well below $0.65/contract.  He’s with TD Ameritrade/Charles Schwab.  
 

After fully integrating with Schwab to become the largest broker on the planet by a couple trillion dollars or so, they’ll have the order execution advantage of being able to match even more of their orders directly with other customers in addition to orders from the exchanges.  This could help your fill prices and speed, especially on stock/ETFs with options that are the most traded by their customers, such as SPY, TSLA, BA, DIS, etc...    Also, their retail ThinkorSwim desktop and mobile trading applications are best in class for option trading IMHO after trialing several of the top brokers.

 

The one caveat is that he can only help people that don’t already have TDA accounts.  If you already have a TDA account, he should be able to put you in contact with the account rep that you never knew you had.

 

These folks earn a residual commission income based on how much assets under management they raise and keep on the platform.  
 

Their team that approves reduced fee levels considers your intended options contract trading volume and your intended new account size.  Keep these points in mind when negotiating.       
 

Austin Gansky
TD Ameritrade | New Accounts Manager
+1 (817)310-5010 Ext. 205010 Office

Austin.Gansky@TDAmeritrade.com

 

Edited July 25, 2020 by QuickNick
Formatting

[QuickNick]

Here’s some recent research I did regarding brokers on their overall execution quality and trade costs. Interactive Brokers Pro was the clear winner, but you can see how well the other brokers stacked up too:  

https://steadyoptions.com/forums/forum/topic/5969-how-does-payment-for-order-flow-work/?do=findComment&comment=145832

[QuickNick]

500 Free Trades up to 20 contracts each of you move a total of $100k to Charles Schwab. 

 

They’ll also negotiate their per contract fee.  After this promo, I think they’ll start me at $0.50/contract.  Trying to get them lower.  Should have it finalized this week.  Even if I’m initially stuck at $0.50, their superior order execution quality vs TDA is worth a lot more to me than $0.10/contract lower rate I have with TDA.  It could be the difference in getting filled near the official trade price vs missing the trade altogether.  TDA’s order routing prioritizes payment for order flow more than Schwab.  Schwab’s information claims their order routing strictly prioritizes getting the trade filled and getting it filled at the best price for their customer; the payment for order flow they as a broker can retain is not a consideration in routing decisions.  Their customer service has been great to work with too.  
 

In contrast, I tried four times to reach Fidelity regarding reducing option trading fees.  Two by phone for over a half hour each (did other busy work while on hold), and 2 “secure messages.”  I never got through to the specific team that makes option fee decisions, nor have any of them responded.  Needless to say, they’re out of the running for my option trading business.  Not a significant loss for a company with trillions in assets under management, but a loss to them nonetheless.  

Edited August 4, 2020 by QuickNick
Typos

[slego]

I managed to negotiate fidelity down to 0.50$/contract back in January, if you’ve generated enough commissions over 6 months or so, should be eligible 

[QuickNick]

@slego  How did you communicate with them?  I’ve actually tried 3 times via phone.  I get transferred around a couple times but the folks that are supposed to handle it didn’t answer after waiting on hold for again for almost half an hour.  

Also, do you like their trading software and are you usually getting fills near official price near the time official trades are announced?

Edited August 4, 2020 by QuickNick

[slego]

i think i get fills more or less that are in line with official alerts, although lately and especially last week i missed a couple winners and got filled on all the losers, so that is more down to timing of when trade alert comes and when i finally get to trade it.   and that also happened to be the time i decided to double my contract sizes... last week wiped all gains from the start of the year based on those things alone. I spoke with the actifve trade desk at fidelity or someone left a message with them and then they called me back saying ok herer you go. I did mention tradier 10$/month deal and made it seem like i was gonna switch to them. 

 

[QuickNick]

@slego  Fidelity finally responded yesterday evening via secure message.  The rep apologized for the delay and gave me a more direct number to the active trader sales group (800-544-5115 for any that wants to negotiate lower fees with them). 

 

Today I used Schwab's StreetSmart Edge platform to execute a "Walk Limit" order and got filled on the LOW trade at a $1.66 credit.  I probably would have got a little higher credit, but I set the walk to start too high at $1.99 and work it's down to a $1.60 at $0.01 price increments every 60 seconds.  I should have probably started at $1.89 and walked it down $0.02 every 15 seconds, or something like that.  Either way, it is awesome that I could just set the walk criteria and go on about my day instead of having to sit there doing it manually.  Nice time-saving feature! 

Edited August 8, 2020 by QuickNick

[bradjames54]

Really like this piece