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This is a duplicate post. Please refer to the post with same title under "Order Executions" forum. My question is about whether paper trading fills are realistic if it were actual money being used instead?

I just posted a trade in my TOS paper trading account and it was filled. It was a SPY 114/115 bull call spread for a $0.88 debit (using options that expire this week) and it was filled within the first half hour of trading (today is Monday, November 1, 2010). TOS paper trading filled the...

They do have a "know your customer" questionnaire that asks for info about annual income, experience, net worth etc. After the second rejection, I sent an email to TDA saying how disappointed I was and that I was thinking about closing my account. Their rep replied saying that I had to...

I normally prefer not to post on such philosophical issues as there are many different opinions and more than one person can be correct...buy any way... I am an Indian citizen who lived for the last 10 years in US...so I think I have the right and capacity to comment on both countries...

It ended when TDAmeritrade bought out Thinkorswim !!

I am not sure if you understood my original post but anyway.... Most brokers, definitely TDA, have diff trading levels for trading options. With TDA it goes like this: Level 1 - Write covered calls and cash secured puts Level 2 - Purchase options Level 3 - Create spreads Level 4 - Write...

I struck out a second time with TDA trying to get approval to trade spreads. In any case, their commission is too high if trading around 50-100 option contracts. Can anyone here recommend the best broker to trade spreads? Both in terms of commissions as well as ease of approval for the...

Also consider this about backtesting: as is familiar to anyone who has read a mutual fund prospectus "past performance does not guarantee future results". Very true. However, any new strategy or "aha" moment has to be tested for validity. Otherwise it is just an idea, nothing more. A serious...

Thanks MGJ Of all the replies yours was at least a bit helpful; I did not think about the in sample/out of sample method. But after backtesting, when I paper traded and even actual money traded my method, it was moderately successful. But using a date in the past as the cutoff sounds...

No sir, my backtesting is most definitely NOT of the type "If I had bought GOOG in 1998" or "If I had bought MSFT in 1982" etc... I can prove that you pick any random stock from the S&P 500 and my strategy is simple enough that it will work on that stock. In fact, the criteria for my strategy...

I am not sure if this is the best forum but I will post anyway. It is okay if someone moves it to the appropriate forum. Let's say I have a few successful trading strategies. By successful, I mean the backtesting results have been good to great ! Now I know that a lot of real traders/old...

I emailed TDAmeritrade customer service and they said this: For long positions, when entering a stop loss order to exit the trade the bid price is used as a trigger for stocks but the ask price is used as a trigger for options. (My opinion is that using the ask is even worse than using a...

Say you want to exit a long option position at a loss; you set a stop loss order. The problem is due to the wide bid/ask spread in the options market (compared to stocks/ETFs - of course, liquidity and bid/ask spreads differ based on the strike prices, expirations, underlying etc.) By the...

Please help me out with this learning exercise. I have thought about this problem intuitively and would like input from other experts on this forum: IF one were to speculate on a stock/ETF (say I am bullish on SPY), which options/strike prices/expirations make the most sense for speculating...

Let's say I have $50K in my account. Also, I am long 100 contracts of a 95/100 bull call spread with the underlying at 105 at expiration. Obviously, both the long and short legs of the spread will be automatically exercised. However, my account balance or even my day trading buying power is...

Without bending the rules or lying on an application form, I believe it is hard for a newbie/inexperienced trader to obtain options trading privileges to trade spreads. Even if I can convince the brokerage about the strengths of my strategy, my risk management techniques, scaling in/out of...

I have Level 2 option trading previliges with TDA - meaning I can buy options, sell covered calls and cash secured puts. I cannot trade spreads or write uncovered calls. However, by taking a little risk I was able to "leg into" a vertical spread for a discount; the spread was already in the...

Does anyone know how to place a vertical spread order on TDA? It can be placed as two separate orders and the commissions are not very different ($10 fixed plus $0.75 per contract). I am looking for an order type where both legs are executed ONLY if I get my target price (bid on the long, ask on...