Stock Platform & Tools
Our trading platform has an intuitive design and is fully customizable. Our reviewers found it to be one of the best-designed platforms of the online stock trading websites we reviewed. To make a trade, you can look up a quote and then click on Ask or Bid to buy or sell, or you can open an order ticket or access a trade menu from a number of screen locations. The options trading platform has just four primary screens, so you can navigate via tabs across the top for account activity details, options, stocks and tools. Each view can dominate the screen, or you can minimize the views and then call them up whenever you need from a quick-launch area. To the right of the cockpit are subcategories to provide news, charts, company information, a watch list and a hot list.
Other useful tools include a risk viewer that analyzes the positions you hold and estimates the associated risk. There is also a call spread investigator. A call spread is a type of option position where you buy and short sell a call on the same stock and both calls have different strike prices and/or expiration dates. The investigator identifies the call spreads with the best theoretical returns. A probability calculator forecasts the likelihood of any given stock to reach a price target. A profit and loss calculator lets you analyze options strategies for theoretical scenarios.
This includes 15 preset options strategies, including advanced strategies such as straddles, condors and iron butterflies. You can use the provided charting tools to analyze the performance of a particular stock. The platform has 35 different technical indicators that can help you develop your trading strategies.
You can place trades, monitor stocks and set alerts through the app. Through the app you can also add funds to your account, though you’ll need to connect it to a bank through the online platform.