The mobile platform isn't available (yet) - which is quite the pain to be honest - but you're right - the screenshots look good.
tastyworks announces fee structure
- Thread starter Sweet Bobby
- Start date
I dunno what the gross coms were. Anyway, I've had the account since 2001 or earlier. I have an IRA with them now and trade 600 lots a week or so.
Thx for the input. I called them - Last year I traded on average about 420 lots/week in a PM account (~ 200k) - ~11k round trips - 22k total options commissions (rest in futures) - also moved a 401k there last year with ~ 400k - bottom line after they reviewed my account I couldn't lower my commission
This is probably a dumb question, but has anyone here used Tastyworks to short ETFs yet? Have you noticed a problem with shares not being available? Just asking because another broker offering similar commissions (Just2Trade) never has shares available for shorting Sector SPDRs. GLD and USO weren't available either. Don't understand why these liquid ETFs should be so difficult to short.
Tried it just now - GLD is available to borrow - that's for sure.
Having said that I'm sure their available shares are nothing compared to IB. Even at TOS I've had issues with shares on super liquid etfs like TBT, TLT and sometimes got a call that they had to buy them back.
Great! Thanks for the info. Guess I better get my name on that waiting list...
For your rate,if I don't use CQG QTrader, say, I use real tick for futures trading, can I save $0.25 per contract?
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Update: Just funded my account, and got an invite to the beta mobile app.
Takeaways:
1. I have been using the webapp, not the software because I mostly use a chromebook. The option chain bid/ask will get stuck sometimes and need to refresh the whole page. I messaged them, and in their defence, they said use the downloaded software which I am not. I can't complain though because with an IB, OptionHouse, and TD account open with the same spreads, sometimes OptionHouse lagged TD and so on. You get what you pay for ....
2.The mobile app, while in Beta, is very weak and will have to come a long ways to even come close the new OptionHouse Beta mobile app, and years away from the TD mobile app. Sad..is any broker going to get a mobile app down that can actually have real time candle charts and non-glitchy option spreads?
3. For being in the works for a only a few years, the web platform is intuitive, fast and I can see how in a year or less it could arguably be the best, most powerful webapp that lets you trade all products from one account with low commissions. One thought that worries me is that it runs on flash and flash is dying, why not use html 5? strange..
4. I've yet to actually send a trade to the market so I will be testing that soon and do another update once their futures go live - should be live next week.
Summary, I'll probably move back to OptionHouse at some point as I'm hoping since the acquisition from E-trade, it will merge all its accounts types and products to one account, improve the mobile app to trade futures and include real time charting. As it stands, the Tastyworks webapp is far better than the Optionhouse and IB webapp and if I'm only trading 10-20 spreads per trade, Tastyworks is about the same in commissions as Optionhouse and a little cheaper than IB around 15 plus spreads. It'd be nice to see more brokers focus on the webapps and mobile because that is the way of the world, the way of the future 5 years ago. Props to TD for that, but, hey, they better for the price they charge....
Takeaways:
1. I have been using the webapp, not the software because I mostly use a chromebook. The option chain bid/ask will get stuck sometimes and need to refresh the whole page. I messaged them, and in their defence, they said use the downloaded software which I am not. I can't complain though because with an IB, OptionHouse, and TD account open with the same spreads, sometimes OptionHouse lagged TD and so on. You get what you pay for ....
2.The mobile app, while in Beta, is very weak and will have to come a long ways to even come close the new OptionHouse Beta mobile app, and years away from the TD mobile app. Sad..is any broker going to get a mobile app down that can actually have real time candle charts and non-glitchy option spreads?
3. For being in the works for a only a few years, the web platform is intuitive, fast and I can see how in a year or less it could arguably be the best, most powerful webapp that lets you trade all products from one account with low commissions. One thought that worries me is that it runs on flash and flash is dying, why not use html 5? strange..
4. I've yet to actually send a trade to the market so I will be testing that soon and do another update once their futures go live - should be live next week.
Summary, I'll probably move back to OptionHouse at some point as I'm hoping since the acquisition from E-trade, it will merge all its accounts types and products to one account, improve the mobile app to trade futures and include real time charting. As it stands, the Tastyworks webapp is far better than the Optionhouse and IB webapp and if I'm only trading 10-20 spreads per trade, Tastyworks is about the same in commissions as Optionhouse and a little cheaper than IB around 15 plus spreads. It'd be nice to see more brokers focus on the webapps and mobile because that is the way of the world, the way of the future 5 years ago. Props to TD for that, but, hey, they better for the price they charge....
OK, 4 months in. Anyone want to give a review?
The platform is still very rough. You can do basically the things that they allowed you to do on dough - that's straightforward - basic spreads, buying or selling. Easiest platform ever to get approved for naked positions, no portfolio margin yet, no futures yet, no mobile app yet. The UI hasn't changed much the last four month - it provides you with a decent initial view but not a lot of double clicking/deep diving capabilities. My biggest issue is the execution. Today it took 30 minutes for me to get a print in SPY and QQQ quotes - the most liquid instruments ever. This sucks if you want to get out of a position - markets are very liquid in the morning - if you can't get out it sucks. You can always call the trade desk - very friendly - however not practical on more than a dozen positions. Same with HLF although I realize that's not that widely traded. Sometimes I submit orders and get filled on TOS, IB at the same price but don't get any execution @ Tastyworks. It feels like the order is stuck rather than not getting filled. Some of the UI is very weird - today I closed several options (diff strikes, expirations) and when you submit an order and want to cancel/replace you've a hard time finding out which order is which - you'll have to drill down into each and every individual order. This resulted in me buying twice as many contracts that I sold in a couple of expiration/strike combinations so I had to sell them back out again. There is no grouping (I like to group positions in a certain way, diff tabs on IB, diff groups in Tos, that's not in Tastyworks yet). The end of day reporting isn't that good - if you close contracts you'll have to look into the actual reports rather than in the platform to get a P&L for a certain type of group. The commissions are ok but the hidden fees make it to 60 cents per contract or 1.20 for a round trip. ACH transfers are fast, 1 day , not like IB where it takes a while to clear the funds. I feel like they could do way more with the UI - everything is pretty large and tries to be simplistic but really fails - kind of like android tried to emulate ios at the beginning with large simple icons and it looked bad. Not sure if retirees or millennials are the target audience.
While the platform needs to grow up I'm more worried about account security or liquidity levels at this point. This is a new firm and I'm hoping they don't take shortcuts at those levels. All my trade accounting was fully automated - with tastyworks not having an API (yet) I'm back to my spreadsheet days. At this time you can't use it seriously as your ONLY platform.
Launching a new brokerage is not a small endeavor - so I do want to give them a fair chance. If at Xmas I'm still not on portfolio margin, don't have API access or can't trade futures via a mobile client I'll look at alternatives - they do what they said they wanted to do which is provide a brokerage for retail one lot customers. I think they're exactly on their path doing that - it just takes a while to get there.
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