I just opened an account at ThinkorSwim. Moving from OptionsXpress

I moved one of my regular IRA's over to them from Lutheran Brotherhood. I had filled out the transfer form wrong (put transfer-in-kind instead of liquidate). I faxed the form to them in th emiddle of the night (I am a night shift worker). The next morning at 10am Chicago time (where they are located) I got a call from a member of their accounting department who let me know I had filled the form out wrong and asked if I would rather verbally verify and correct the field over the phone rather then waiting to mail/fax a new one.

He went over each field with me and we corrected the error; he also explained why they couldn't just transfer my shares. He answered a couple of questions about the IRS and time as well.

Very polite, very knowledgeable and can easily explain something in 'common' terms to someone that isn't that market savvy.

They are also refunding my transfer/account fee's.

When we spoke, I asked about opening a non-margin cash account so I could have a seperate 'speculation' account for options, with no mininimum deposit to open. He did a little checking and said that it wouldn't be a problem at all.

I, thus far, as a 'basic' customer have not had a problem with anything from them. They have made the transfer process extremely easy and answered all of my questions promptly/polietly.

I don't trade in large volumes and probably never will; but for me and my 6$,000; I think they were the best value for the money.

Thanks,
Eric

PS I'll update this after I start trying to use their software and such. I took a look at it and so-far it has confused the hell out of me. Not because it's complicated looking, but because I don't understand half of the information it's giving me. Thats my mountain to climb though, I would rather have too much info then too little.
 
I went ahead and opened up Wifeys ThinkorSwim IRA options account with an ACAT transfer today. She was flat in her OptionsXpress account.

We have a tax burden due by April 15th., even though I paid/estimated our taxes quarterly (I screwed up, but I paid enough to avoid a penalty I think...yes ElectricSavant can screw up too).

Wifey will max out her 2005 contribution with a $4,500.00 IRA deposit, after the ACAT is complete, to lessen our tax burden.

I declared the interest earned in my Forex account and gains, even though my marketmaker did not report.

Michael B.

P.S. maybe they will give me the 50 bucks...we will see...
 
Quote from MidnightVoodoo:


Thanks,
Eric

PS I'll update this after I start trying to use their software and such. I took a look at it and so-far it has confused the hell out of me. Not because it's complicated looking, but because I don't understand half of the information it's giving me. Thats my mountain to climb though, I would rather have too much info then too little. [/B]
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Eric...stay with it..you won't regret it. It took me at least 3 months to get comfortable with the platform but after 6 months I absolutely loved it and am spoiled to anything else. Its worth going over (several times) each demonstration and now that there is a "paper money" account you can make your mistakes there!!good luck donna
 
Quote from DonnaV:

Eric...stay with it..you won't regret it. It took me at least 3 months to get comfortable with the platform but after 6 months I absolutely loved it and am spoiled to anything else. Its worth going over (several times) each demonstration and now that there is a "paper money" account you can make your mistakes there!!good luck donna
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I second that. Once you learn how to use the platform you start thinking how you could have traded without it all this time.:)
 
for everybody's information -- OX vs TOS:

OX is a public company (their stock is doing quite well), while TOS is a privately held company.

Some people might feel a public company has more gov't overseeing.

Your money at TOS is held at Penson Financial. Some people think it is safer that way.

OX does not take payment from market makers. i.e. they would not divert your order to certain mm because of rebates.

OX does not trade against you. They have no mm facility, their only business is to process your order. (this is not to imply you will get better, nor worse fills.)

OX platform is web-based. You get all the functionality even if you are using other people's computer.
TOS platform is software based. You need to download and install a program. They also have a web-based trading, but the functionality is limited (e.g. no charts).

Web-based platform is slower, but no worries for installation and upgrades, etc.


Choice is yours. ;-)
 
OX does not take payment from market makers. i.e. they would not divert your order to certain mm because of rebates.
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ToS has emphasized that they don't sell order flow either.
 
Quote from WD40:

for everybody's information -- OX vs TOS:

OX is a public company (their stock is doing quite well), while TOS is a privately held company.

Some people might feel a public company has more gov't overseeing.

Your money at TOS is held at Penson Financial. Some people think it is safer that way.

OX does not take payment from market makers. i.e. they would not divert your order to certain mm because of rebates.

OX does not trade against you. They have no mm facility, their only business is to process your order. (this is not to imply you will get better, nor worse fills.)

OX platform is web-based. You get all the functionality even if you are using other people's computer.
TOS platform is software based. You need to download and install a program. They also have a web-based trading, but the functionality is limited (e.g. no charts).

Web-based platform is slower, but no worries for installation and upgrades, etc.


Choice is yours. ;-)
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First of all, OX does accept payment for order flow, it states right there on their website OptionsXpress

TOS, on the other hand, does NOT!

Second, are you implying that TOS trades against customers!? You say that:

Quote from WD40: OX does not trade against you!
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For you information, TOS does not do that either!

Third, the customer money is held at OX's clearing firm, just as it is the case with TOS, so don't see any difference there.

Finally, TOS platform, can be accessed from any computer as long as you have the software installed. I admit, not as convenient as OX's web-based, but then again, OX's web-based platform is stone age compared to TOS's desktop one.

Making a comparison is cool, but get your facts straight first.
 
Quote from WD40:

for everybody's information -- OX vs TOS:

OX is a public company (their stock is doing quite well), while TOS is a privately held company.

Some people might feel a public company has more gov't overseeing.

Your money at TOS is held at Penson Financial. Some people think it is safer that way.

OX does not take payment from market makers. i.e. they would not divert your order to certain mm because of rebates.

OX does not trade against you. They have no mm facility, their only business is to process your order. (this is not to imply you will get better, nor worse fills.)

OX platform is web-based. You get all the functionality even if you are using other people's computer.
TOS platform is software based. You need to download and install a program. They also have a web-based trading, but the functionality is limited (e.g. no charts).

Web-based platform is slower, but no worries for installation and upgrades, etc.


Choice is yours. ;-)
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I joined OX a few years ago because of their liberal options trading permissions for IRA's. I use IB for my taxable trades but still have my IRA account at OX.

I did not do a careful comparison with TOS, but at a glance they seem to offer the same IRA option trading capability. Anybody know of any TOS shortcomings in this regard?

The OX platform has good tools and I built some Excel spreadsheets around them that reduces my motivation to migrate to TOS.

The OX $12.95 order minimum is a pain because if your limit order gets a partial fill you get hit with the $12.95 minimum. This has happened to me on spread orders where only one filled and I get hit for $25.90 (glad it wasn't a condor). I think TOS only charges one minimum for a spread order so they seem better in that regard.

I sometimes get very good fills on OX spread orders and always wondered if it was due to their offering their internal spread listing to their own customers.

Hasn't happened recently, but in the past sometimes canceling an order took many minutes. Sometimes I had to call to get it cancelled.

And as I mentioned previously, the OX Bond prices of $5 per bond is highway robbery.

If I had to make a choice today, from what I read I would lean toward TOS.

Don
 
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