Tastytrade Review + Criticism

L

Lucas

I am a huge fan of tastytrade but as a skeptic I think it is always useful to look at both sides.

I found the old thread really useful and I would like to start a new thread. I hope members avoid personal attacks and keep the criticism fair.

My main issue with the show are:
1 options is a very limited product you have only a few products with liquidity
2 While they preach options trading / premium selling their core position is future contracts scalping
3 They fail to provide performance figure, anyone trying to get credibility on their strategy would provide profit.
4 Their research normally ignores commission and fees and take mid-price which is only valid for a few symbols only.
5 Anyone that followed Tom noticed that he adds to losing position talk about winners and push losers to his core position.

Good things from TT
1 Traders should learn about correlation
2 They provide free software in dough
3 Some trade ideas although I dont follow all of them
4 Some market measure have some validity but be skeptic they dont consider fee/commission anyone that ever run a backtest knows the difference in profit it makes.

TD-Ameritrade has a huge commission compared to other brokers. They have different commission plans which might be a reason TT don't include commission on their research since some people will pay like 7$ for an option contract and others 1$.

Anyway I hope we can keep this to the topic.
 
The thing with TDA is I don't think they're doing a particularly bad job or anything its just the damn commissions that are an issue. Their margin relief for naked and spread positions is entirely reasonable (they even handle exchange traded spreads). Never had a big issue with executions (even with futures), and the data costs are not really an issue either as they are subsidized by the higher commissions. It's just the commissions overall that are the larger issue for most. Can't trade intraday through them due to these costs.

Obviously more pro platforms/brokers provide more markets (for a cost) and better historical data (for a cost).
 
The fact Tastytrade runs only on TD is a big draw back for me, I use TD as a platform but I don't execute orders on TD. I wonder if tastytrade applied the default TD commission would they have any strategies with profit. Specially in the past few years when volatility has been going down and down.

Also they close trades when it doesn't make sense. To force people pay the commission? They call it managing winners. It makes sense to close some positions that has high probability to go in the money but they advocate closing positions that has very low prob to move against you.
 
If i understand correctly, tastytrade is a newscast that makes money via an affiliate relationship with tdameritrade. It seems like great salesmanship. I can't stand to listen to people that act like newscasters and talk too much, so I am unable to see what they are teaching people or know if it is decent material. The guy has an impressive background as an entrepreneur.
 
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