Leaderboard

That was already using the median by default.

Give Tradier a call, they might be able to help you 980-272-3880

@Ringandpinion I highly recommend TastyWorks. I still use them as my backup broker and will be using them as my main broker after my 500 free trades with Schwab is over. TastyWorks is the least cumbersome platform for trading options IMHO. I haven’t even gotten into analyzing trades on ONE because TW makes it so easy to analyze trades and move around the legs to see the effect. TW also adds up your gains/losses on a multi-step trade easily in the history tab. You just click to highlight the parts of the trade you want summed up and it does it for you instantly. Their exchange fees are higher than most brokers, but they’re probably more in line with Interactive Brokers. However, if Schwab/TDA goes to zero commissions, then I’d bet TW drops their round trip commission to 50c to open and $0 to close instead of $1.00 so they stay competitive. Also, their execution quality is among the best in class from my experience. Tom Sosnoff and some of his teammates were market makers for a decades before they created ToS and then created TastyWorks brokerage platforms. So, they know better than most anyone how to get the best fills and price improvement. In fact, they pride themselves in the reliability of TW during high vol times when older platforms glitch out because their backend systems can’t and the amount of data. TW also executes trade well at market open and close in my experience. A lot better than ToS and a little better than StreetSmart Edge. They’ve confirmed it’s because of their newer and more advanced architecture than how they built ToS a couple decades ago. It gives them more speed, capacity and future capabilities. In fact, I strongly suspect Schwab will upgrade to better front and backend systems like TWs when they integrate ToS. If they don’t, then it will leave them at a major disadvantage regarding reliability and order execution. Especially if they drop option commissions to zero and bring in a flood of active option traders like they did when they dropped stock trading to zero commission. TW’s head of trading was even cool enough to call me personally and answer my detailed questions about their order execution. They don’t use or offer elaborate algos like IB. They believe more in speed and reliability. Their trading operations team is constantly monitoring which market maker(s) are giving the best fills and they flow most of their orders to the one(s) that are doing the best job for them. Their order flow doesn’t overwhelm one or two market makers because it’s millions, not billions. They’re even cutting a market maker named Wolverine that I’ve seen other brokers are still using and they’re looking to add Sequoia to their list soon. The whole platform was created primarily for making option trading easier and the improvements they implement do that too. Everyone you’ll interact with at TastyWorks is an option trader, so the customer service excellent and insightful. The free trade ideas from a couple dozen of their traders compliment the SO strategy well because they’re short Vega. Side note, the only free lunch I’ve found in my broker research is active stock (not option) trading on Fidelity. Top notch stock order execution speed and reliability for $0, PLUS the rebate 99% of the payment for order flow to the trader as price improvement. They’re losing money on this to attract more assets to their wealth management platforms. I’m sure the data shows that the majority of active traders tire out and end up wanting a managed account.

The conversation took place probably in July and he just said "later this year around October when the merger is complete" (paraphrasing). I got the impression that it was going to be across the board, eliminating commissions for everyone. I'm sure they'll still pass on "fees". Someone earlier in this thread mentioned the "free" trading is just a shell game, they'll make up the cost somewhere else, I agree 100%. TANSTAAFL - there ain't no such thing as a free lunch. We'll end up paying for it somewhere else. The TOS outages a couple of months ago came right after I closed my IB accounts and was down to one broker. If any of my trades had needed immediate attention I would not have been able to hedge or compensate in another account. That would have sucked.

Thanks, again. You can see how bad I am at understanding this backtesting. I was thinking the change in date would result in a completely different data set, but, since this earnings cycle isn't really involved, then just the distance to the earnings date matters. Doh!!