I just opened an account at ThinkorSwim. Moving from OptionsXpress

Well... we only pay $149.00/quarter...but have been grandfathered into a lower rate as we have had the optionsmart advisory for a couple of years...

Wifey has made about 8k with her money after costs and commissions..here is her spreadsheet:
 

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sheesh..I am getting PM's about this...look she allocates 2 times the money to qqqq spreads and the other money to straight qqqq options

For example currently she has $6,361.98 (the spreadsheet was off by a few cents, I fixed it). So she has $2,120.00 in QQQQ options and $4,240.00 allocated to QQQQ spreads. but currently she is flat...

When a signal comes TOS and her gets an email and then TOS sends her an Email telling her its done...

I have to work my ass of to make this kind of money and I really do not want to discuss her trading. (her trading lol...she does not know a call from a put)

Both OX and TOS offer this advisory and really not what this thread is about...but if your an auto-trader...TOS is the better deal and they have a lot of advisories to choose from...

Also newbies...Never put all your money on RED! Evenhough, Wifey uses all her capital, I gave her this simple money managment to keep her out of trouble which it has and she has outperformed the model portfolios illustrated because of this MM. When she draws money out of her ATM machine, I sometimes keep her out of the Options portion of the advisory and just let her trade the spreads portion of the QQQQ advisory...


Michael B.
 
I know there are many lurkers here reading ET..searching for something like this...

I am a trader of foreign currencies, and I must do my due-diligence. These posts above are not recommendations. Wifey has just been fortunate the last couple of years and all this can go terribly wrong. We are just looking for small double digit yields per year and this is what you might be able to get. Options are risky and sometimes I wonder if all that leverage and risk is worth it.

I make sure she always gets her original investment out and if she loses it all at this point she is still above water... the 6k in her account is all profit...she uses this account and withdraws and deposits like its a checking account! but I keep track of the bottom line with this simple spreadsheet.

She needs to leave it alone for a year or two now....We might add the other $4,500.00 for the year 2006 IRA contribution early instead of waiting until tax time...this would bring her up above 10k where she can put on some contracts...

oh yeah to answer someones question here, instead of in a PM...she can have up to two positions of spreads and two postions of straight options, all "on" at the same time. The allocations I gave her usually do not allow this though...its "first come-first serve" when allocating dollar amounts and they are re-adjusted after each execution...but always follow that 2:1 method of cash available...If she would just let the numbers get bigger and quit buying condo's, I would have something to work with and could make the money management better based on her open positions and risk that is on.

Michael B.
 
I have found a solution to this problem. I am now remotely accessing my home (host) PC from my office (behind a firewall) over the web. My home PC has the TOS platform installed and I leave it on. For the remote access service, I just started using http://www.GoToMyPC.com . There is a free trial for 30 days. BTW, I am not affiliated with that service, but just a new customer.



Quote from Hybone:

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I am at work during business hours and behind a firewall. I installed the TOS platform but it seems to not let me connect .... it just hangs there. I know that it is due to the firewall and I doubt I can talk to the Network admin about getting connected as my job has nothing to do with my trading. This is the only drawback I can see right now with TOS, even though they have web based trading, it is VERY limited. Plus, most of the time when I get home, it is too late to do meaningful analysis on the platform, or to actually learn the platform. Anyone has any idea to get connected behind a firewall? I know there was a separate thread on this topic but I didn't see any viable solutions. Thanks.
More...
 
Quote from rocket8872:

OX pays about 3.4% on cash while TOS only 1.2%.
More...
One clarification, they only pay those rates in their sweep accounts. No problem there except in an IRA if you have "margin requirements". In that case, they take the cash security out of the sweep and make it pure cash which pays a very low rate. So if you sell say NP's all the cash-security will earn very low rates.

The above is true for OX, but I am not certain about TOS. Although TOS sweep account rate is so low it makes little difference.

One workaround is to sell CC's instead of NP's because the risk-free rate is included in the CC. Always do the math to be sure.

Don

P.S. I think IB pays interest on cash and I don't think they monkey around with sweep accounts. Their rates are also pretty high (around 4%). Although I never had an IRA with IB so I could be missing something.
 
tos doesn't sweep your money into a money mkt cuz they take that cash balance and lend it in the overnight mkt. They pay out a nominal interest rate to clients and keep the spread. Boutique firms are more likely to do this. It's an effective business model for a boutique option firm. If they were public you'd see they make a killing from this on their quarterly disclosures, but they're not. Not yet
 
Ok...today was our first trade..Wifey has an advisory hooked up to TOS....

what is missing is the email after the fill from TOS...

this is convenient as the advisory sends out the email with the alert to us...but nothing from TOS to confirm when we are in....


Can't have everything I guess, but AutoTrade clients need this sort of service...

Michael B.
 
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