Brokers
Best Brokerage Account 2021Let’s talk about the best brokerage account, and in order to do this, I want to compare five different brokers for you.
I’ll be comparing tastyworks, the current broker that I’m currently trading with, Robinhood because many traders are using it, TD Ameritrade because it’s wildly popular, Interactive Brokers because it’s great for international traders, and we will talk about a new broker that I’ve been using for the past couple of months, so I have an account with them.
I want to talk about this and compare them to the others and tell you why I really like this new broker and why I’m in the process of switching over all my accounts.
The first thing to keep in mind when you’re comparing different brokers, you have to pick criteria that fit your needs.
These are my criteria and they might be great for you, or your criteria may be different. So what I’m looking for when finding the best broker.
My Criteria For Selecting A Broker
So the first thing that I would like to know is how much do I have to pay in commissions per month? I use a certain baseline for this.
With my current broker, tastyworks, I looked back over the past three months and I wanted to see how much I spent. From 1/1 through 3/31 I made 150 trades and traded 1,665 contracts.
So I use this as my baseline in order to compare these different brokers. I took to see what if I make 150 trades, or 50 trades per month and 500 contracts that I’m trading per month.
Again, for you, it might be different, but we need to have somehow a baseline, especially when we are comparing the commissions per month that I’m spending right now, that I would be spending on Robinhood, TD Ameritrade, interactive brokers, and this new broker that I’m trading with.
Now, every single broker has some other fees, and you need to see which of these fees are important to you. Here are the ones that are important to me.
I want to know if there any wire fees and if so, how much are they?
Also, are there any assignment fees? Assignment fees are important to me because I’m trading The Wheel Strategy, and part of this strategy is getting assigned shares, so I want to know how much this will be.
Information about their customer support is also important to me. What happens if I need help and I need to call or e-mail them? Do they have an online chat feature? So this is important for me.
What about the platform? Every single broker offers a platform for you, so which one best fits your needs?
This is where we get a little bit more technical because I want to talk about levels three and four. What does this mean?
Well, it means that, especially when you are selling options which you do with The Wheel Strategy, you need certain option trading permissions, so you want to know how easily can you get level three and four if this is important to you.
Now, last but not least, I love having live data. I don’t know about you, but I want to make sure that live data available with these brokerages.
I also want to know how much it costs if anything. So let’s get started and let’s talk about the first broker here, tastyworks.
tastyworks
I am currently using tastyworks, and I know exactly how much money I spent on tastyworks.
On this particular account, I spent $550 dollars in commissions.
For the baseline of 50 trades and 500 contracts per month, I spent around $180 in commissions.
Now for tastyworks, how much are wire fees? When I wire money out, which is once a month, it costs me $25.
What about the assignment fees? The assignment fees for tastyworks are $5. I want to explain to you exactly how they are charging.
So with tastyworks, they charge $1 per contract and they do have a $10 maximum. So you’re never paying more than $10.
Even if you’re trading 50 contracts, you will only pay $10.
They also have no closing fees and this applies to options trading. For stock trading, these days, trading stocks is free pretty much everywhere.
So we want to worry about options here because that’s what I’m mainly trading.
What about customer support? I must say their support is good. The experiences that I have had thus far when I contact them by chat are very quick.
When contacting them through chat, they usually only have me on hold for three to ten minutes.
Now, what I do not like about tastyworks? You cannot call them, and sometimes I would rather speak with someone on the phone, so this is why I’m not labeling it “very good,” I’m just labeling it as “good” because you can’t call them.
As for their platform, I think it is pretty good. However, I’m just using a fraction of the platform, so for me, the most important function is actually placing trades.
I’m not using any of the complicated curves that you can have and all of the analysis tools, but again, if this is important to you, then you need to make sure that this platform meets all of your needs.
For me, it does what I need it to do, which is entering trades.
Now level three and four is actually something that is quite easy to obtain with tastyworks. So no problems there, and live data is actually free.
Robinhood
As for Robinhood, how much would you pay in commissions per month? Well, Robinhood has always advertised you pay zero commissions, and that is true. For options trading, you also pay zero dollars, which is actually pretty cool.
Wire fees are a whopping zero dollars with assignment fees being zero dollars. So thus far Robinhood is really good in terms of commissions, right?
Well, what about customer support? Now, full disclosure, I do not have an account with Robinhood, so I’ve never contacted them, but based on what I have heard, it is pretty bad.
What about based on what I’ve seen? I don’t know if you’ve been following the news, but back when we had the GME craziness, Robinhood restricted trading for several days.
I don’t think that was fair. I don’t think that they should have done that, but they did.
This makes it seem to me they don’t have their customers in mind. Now, again, full disclosure, I don’t have an account with them and never contacted them. I’ve just heard that customer support is pretty bad.
What about the platform? I don’t know first hand, but I’ve heard it’s good. Again, this is where I go from hearsay because I don’t have an account with Robinhood, never had one, & don’t want one.
In terms of levels three and four, I heard from traders who have an account with them say it is fairly difficult to obtain levels three and four.
If you’re trading The Wheel Strategy, this is super important. As for their live data, it’s free.
TD Ameritrade
Now on to TD Ameritrade. How much would you spend with TD Ameritrade based on my baseline? You would pay 65 cents per the contract that you trade.
So if you’re trading like me, 500 contracts per month, times 65 cents, that comes to $325.
What about the wire fee? The wire fees here are also $25, the same as with tastyworks, but assignment fees are zero.
Now, what about customer support? Customer support used to be good. Right now I would say it is decent.
There was a time when you could call them they would pick right up. These days you are probably on hold for anywhere between 15 minutes and 2 hours because they got bought by Charles Schwab.
There seems to be a lot of consolidation going on and because of this, and because of this, it seems that customer support is suffering.
What about the platform? ThinkOrSwim is probably one of the most powerful trading platforms out there, and it is fairly complex.
For me, I just need to enter simple orders such as buy and sell orders. So for me personally, it is too complex.
It took me a long time to learn it. For those of you who have ThinkOrSwim, you either love it or you hate it. Either way, it is so complex, so you probably had to spend hours and hours learning it.
Levels three and four are fairly simple to acquire, and also live data here is free.
Interactive Brokers
Now with Interactive Brokers, I personally do have three accounts. I’ve been using them since 1999.
They’re a great choice for international traders. However, Interactive Brokers charges 65 cents per contract.
So very similar here to TD Ameritrade. If I would trade on Interactive Brokers I would actually spend $325.
The wire fee here is a little bit cheaper, $10. The assignment fees, if you get assigned, are zero.
Now their customer support, based on my experience is pretty bad. I’ve tried contacting them by chat, by phone, by email, and if you’re trying to contact them by chat, you will most likely be on hold for at least 20 minutes.
If you try to contact them by phone it is not unusual to wait 30 to 60 minutes until you get connected.
Their platform here is actually simple to use, but I find it’s pretty clunky. So just if you want my opinion and again, this is just my opinion.
You on the other hand might find this platform blazing fast and think it’s the best trading platform there is.
Now, in terms of levels three and four, yes, it is fairly easy to obtain, but they charge you $14.50 for live data, so just keep this in mind.
This is a monthly fee so you just need to know what you need.
So with the new broker, and I’ll tell you in a moment who that is, but when I saw all this mess going on in February where several brokers restricted trading, I said, “you know what, this is not fair.”
When I heard from some of you say, “My broker suddenly raised the margin requirements and I didn’t have a margin problem before and now I have a margin call,” or that you’re on hold forever before you get any customer support, I set out to find a great broker, and here is the new broker that I’m currently using.
Tradier
The new broker that I’m using is Tradier. I will move all of my accounts over to them because of what they’re offering.
The commission per month, it’s a $10 flat fee. $10 no matter how many options you trade.
This is a special rate for those of you reading these articles, and following me on YouTube.
So I think it is an absolutely cool model because it is a flat fee no matter how many contracts you trade.
Now, this, of course, is great if you are trading a lot of contracts like me. You have seen it, 500 contracts per month, with 150 trades, so I’m a very, very active trader.
I think it is absolutely cool that instead of paying $180 per month, all I’m paying right now is a $10 flat fee. That is pretty cool.
Now the wire fees are a little bit more expensive. The wire fees are $35, but again, I’m using it once a month.
So, therefore, if I’m adding this up, all right, and I say, well, that is $205 per month versus $45 a month, and for me, that adds up.
Right. It’s only a $10 difference from tastyworks, and I’m not wiring money in and out like crazy. I’m just wiring it out once a month and that is okay.
So the assignment fee here is a little bit higher, at $9 as of right now. So over the past three months, I had 3 wires and I had 8 assignments.
This is for the year. This means that per month I have 1 wire and approximately 3 assignments.
So as you can see, this is why the assignment costs here for me are not that important.
Again, these are my numbers, your numbers might be completely different, and that is fine.
This is where the cool thing is you have probably your brokerage account statement, so you can take a look at that, and then you know exactly how much you’re paying right now.
So the customer support, I must say based on my experience, over the past two months that I’ve been using them, is awesome.
What do I mean by awesome? By awesome I mean that I can pick up the phone right now.
I can call them, and within two to three rings, somebody picks up. The customer support team is in North Carolina, so I’m not going overseas, they are here in the United States.
They have been super responsive by email and by phone. I don’t even know if they offer a chat on the website because I was just so happy that I can finally talk to somebody.
Again, I’m coming from tastyworks, and on tastyworks, I’ve never, ever been able to talk to somebody because their business model is that they’re all doing it by chat, so I love this.
What about their platform? Their platform is simple, and in my opinion, it is super easy to learn.
So you can learn this platform in literally 10 minutes because that’s what they do. They just say, hey, if you want to enter trades, which I want to do, it’s fine.
They don’t have all of the bells and whistles that the other platforms have. So I would say it’s more comparable to Robinhood instead of a platform like TD Ameritrade because with Robinhood you just enter the trade and it is good.
So it’s simple and easy, does the trick for me.
Levels three and four are super easy to get. And live data is free. So this is what this new broker is all about.
For our members, we have created in our private community a special discussion group, and in this discussion group, we are here to help you, support you, with this particular brokerage. Which again is called Tradier.
So, for example, people have been asking if they open an account for business, an LLC for example? And the answer is yes. So you can ask us if you want to, of course, you can contact them.
So this is what we have here. We have a Tradier discussion group.
We do have tutorials for you such as videos on how to open an account, how to set up a paper trading account, and that reminds me, they offer paper trading. As you know, I highly recommend that you trade on a paper trading account first.
There are also videos on how to fund your Tradier account, how to place a stock entry order for the PowerX Strategy, how to place options order for the PowerX Strategy, entering orders for The Wheel Strategy, how to check your positions.
Summary
OK. So, again, my promise is to show you the best broker and this is the best broker for my needs. Now, for your needs, it might be different, but I thought that I compare here that the top five brokers that most traders are using right now.
Best Pairs to Hedge if you have an American Trading Account.This is just a quick video in response to a question a friend of mine had and so I thought I'd share my response to him with everyone else.
If anyone has any questions about advanced trading, feel free to drop me a line and let's chat.
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If you like my analysis:)
Trade Safe - Trade Well
Regards,
Michael Harding 😎 Chief Technical Strategist @ LEFTURN Inc.
RISK DISCLAIMER
Information and opinions contained with this post are for educational purposes and do not constitute trading recommendations. Trading Forex on margin carries a high level of risk and may not be suitable for all investors. Before deciding to invest in Forex you should consider your knowledge, investment objectives, and your risk appetite. Only trade/invest with funds you can afford to lose.
Rising Wedge Breakout on GBPJPY. A Perfect Sell Entry.Hello my fellow traders, hope you'll making some profits. We are here with our new analysis so that we can increase those profits for you. Let’s get into the analysis. The pair did breakout from its rising wedge and took a reverse after hitting its resistance zone. As far our analysis, one can take take a sell signal while keeping TP at 132.000
Let us know your views on this in the comment section. Thank you all.
There is a good news for our followers. We will be doing analysis on demand. So let us know which pair you want our analysis on and we will get it for you. Do like and follow us.
Ryan.R.Lopes
SCAM idea from borker??Apparently I received a call from a broker today who insited on me buying this CDE stock at 3.48 USD (price they expect to get during today's session).
This company is supposed to have just signed an important contract that will make the price go to 5 or even 6 USD within 3 months. Maximum loss they expect is 15%.
Apparently more than 30 analysts from this company agreed that the stock can only go up. No doubts.
The whole thing sounded so much like The Wolf of Wall Street movie so I just decided to listen to what he had to say for fun. I would never put money over the phone under these circumstances so I decided to test his idea here instead.
Profit 1 at 5.00 USD
Profit 2 at 6.00 USD
Stop Loss at 2.95
Deadline: 3 months
Let's see how bad of a scam it was!
EURHUF Short BiasHello everyone!
This is eurhuf update. Recently when we suppose to post this idea. the price was nearly that daily cp of supply but that is now declined and rejected.
Eurhuf just over bought and confirming the h4 supply level nested in the daily and weekly supply area. So in shortly we may see a good drop.
Happy Trading
0x/Bitcoin (ZRXBTC) Broker Burns up?0x/Bitcoin (ZRXBTC) 4-Hour Bars, Normal Scaling, 06/24/18, Written 12:35 a.m. EST, by Mike Mansfield
Hi trader friends, we have 0x Protocol under an Andrews 0.618 support line & the Fibonacci 0.618 retracement, with only 3 of 5 waves completed on the downside, so there should be a bit more to come. After the expected low, larger bounce is due, preferably from a bit lower at 0.000008585 area, where I show a green arrow turning up. But, this broker/exchange technology is not catching fire lately, while Bianance has been killing it (see past recos).
ELLIOTT WAVES: CORRECTION or IMPULSE?:
This looks more like a giant correction down. Here’s why:
Angular momentum down on Wave (A) is steeper than the angular momentum down on Wave (C), at least thus far.
Even Wave 3 of (A) is steeper than Wave 3 of Wave (C).
Therefore, Wave (C) is LESS likely to be an Impulse wave. Instead, we are likely in a Wave (C) correction.
CYCLES:
Red cycle in trough phase, with actual trough on 06/20/18. Blue cycle is still heading down.
This often means a big bounce is due, but maybe not a new uptrend yet. Price is more important than time.
Red cycle tops again on 08/08/19, so you'll likely want to be out of any longs before that.
Blue cycle bottoms in early October, 2018, along with some other large cycles in BTC.
DIVERGENCE:
Both RSI(9) and MACD have bullish divergence suggesting the low is getting near.
TARGET UP:
Upside bounce target is the prior Wave IV area, likely launch from the next Andrews Pitchfork and FIBO intersect line, both shown by the green arrows.
BOTTOM LINE:
Possible short-term tradeable low coming. There should be another short sale opportunity, at the prior Wave 4 horizontal black line area, after the expected big bounce.
Have a great week!
DISCLOSURE:
This analysis is meant for educational purposes only. You trade at your own risk!
Cheers!
Michael Mansfield CIO
OMGBTC (OMISEGO Token) Ready, Set…………..!OMGBTC (OMISEGO Token) 05/26/18, 8:15 PM EST, by Mike Mansfield
Good evening, trader friends! Thanks for stopping by. No, no, no, I am not here to wrangle a thumbs up from you on this one. However, if you just love any of the other forecasts, feel free to like away! ;-)
OMISEGO sounds a bit like what “oh my gosh” would be in another language.
Perhaps you can relate to the following statement: "Sometimes I literally “know” what an outcome of a chart will be with a high degree of clarity, probability, and ultimately accuracy." However, this is not one of those times. I can rationally make the case for several outcomes. That is not something I love….but since someone asked for this, I’ll map out the 3 patterns and their likely paths and change of trend times and price areas to watch for.
BOTTOM LINE: UG! We have patterns within patterns, but the cycles look good!
Pattern-1 is long-term neutral:
Large triangle wedge pattern (lime green and dark red lines) may be forming. If correct, it is unfinished and will have at least one, possibly two, more legs down toward the red long-term support trend trend-line, before we can say for sure if the pattern will resolve to the upside and moonshot, or tank into crypto oblivion.
Pattern-2 is medium-term bearish. Maybe:
Bearish rising wedge (cyan blue trend-lines) lines are converging in an upward direction. But it’s not super perfect pattern, as they sometimes look. Rising wedges typically resolves to the downside in a significant way. Moreover, OMG broke the lower support line at the recent May 23 low, which likely means eventually lower prices.
Pattern-3 is short-term bullish:
Falling wedge (yellow downward trend-lines) is short-term bullish and no matter what,
a cyclical bounce is due now based on the two quite accurate cycles thus far.
CYCLES:
Two nicely aligning cycles lows are nesting now (making a low). OMG should have a tradable rally to the green downtrend line.
Green cycle moving up and due to peak June 18,
Green cycle bottoms again July 15th.
Pink cycle is also moving up. Both the pink and green cycle are both due to top around August 10 also, =/- 2 days.
INDICATORS:
Klinger Volume Force is in a wedge. It also supports the idea that the eventual breakout, up or down, should be big.
MACD is rounding in line with cycle lows due any day now.
SUMMARY:
Short-term pattern and cyclical are bullish for a bounce, or more, perhaps until mid June.
Then, another selloff back to the lower cyan support trend-line, in alignment with the cycle low of the shorter-term green cycle, while the larger pink cycle is
moving up.
OMG with then either breakout the upside in line with the pink cycle moving up until about August 10th, while the pink longer-term cycle is also moving up and
blast off.
If the breakout does not happen by the peak of the Pink cycle (Aug 10th), then OMG is very bearish, and the bigger triangle/wedge will likely end badly for OMG.
If OMG breaks out to the upside between now and June 18th, then it might retest the breakout line or pullback around July 15th then have a cyclical peak
August 10th +/- 2 days.
POTENTIAL TRADE:
Consider looking for a short-term cyclical long trade. Lower risk area could be at the first higher swing low once a 34-50 bar EMA
average (or something better) turns up and price is also closing above the average. If The trade doesn't move nicely after the first or second pullback on a 240 minute chart, then the outlooks would be quite bearish short-term and long-term.
DISCLOSURE:
This analysis is meant for educational purposes only. You trade at your own risk!
Cheers!
Michael Mansfield CIO
BTCUSD Short Analysis from Ec Holding GroupThe prices has reached our support line of $10,787. We have set a firts and second Target of $ 10,200- $ 10,500. If you graphic confirms this support and breaks we will set our second target at $9,400 for 48 hour period.
BTC has also reached our $6,000 support line from firts week of February. This event may trigger another considered drop. Be alert in this behavior for the next 24 hours
Genesis Vision (GVT), A Green Vision for 2018LONG trade.
Textbook Cup & Handle on 4H/6H/12H/1D.
Volume checks out.
* Regular updates: github.com
* Only 4.4M coins and still under the radar: coinmarketcap.com
* Busy roadmap up until 2020: genesis.vision
* On the team, developers from St. Petersburg Exchange and CEO of Tools for Brokers with over 300 brokers as clients: t4b.com
* Great community on telegram (no meme-fest or moonkids): t.me
* Trading tournament coming up January 2018, syncs perfectly with the chart.
* BTC-icon Charlie Shrem on the advisors team.
* Aims to attract the whole MetaTrader-scene: $$$
* Added to Binance just after ICO, which in my mind tends to add only quality coins
* Holds amazingly well regardless of BTC-movements
THIS IS NOT IN ANY WAY SHAPE OR FORM TRADING ADVICE!!!
ALWAYS DO YOUR OWN RESEARCH
Golden heights - XAUUSD The future, predictedAfter the birth into a brand new not so shiny market, I can happily say a vast majority of our active clients listened well and entered into XUAUSD positions with our platform www.STBinary.com
Moving forwards we will see no doubt a large accumalitive growth pattern with GOLD. Uncertainty is king remember. Trade re-negotiation deals are coming. Scottish and Irish referendums are coming. German French and Spanish changes are coming.
A brave new world indeed - If you want to change your life with trading gains, or simply wish to find out more please do get in touch. Sharing opinions and servicing clients is what we do ;)