Types of Day Trading

While choosing an online broker, make sure of the premium on reliability, speed, and low cost. These features have been designed to appeal to an infrequent trader is just unnecessary for a day trader, who usually start off with no position in their own portfolios and make a lot of transactions. 

Day traders place the trades manually, or they usually set up an automated system to generate orders on their own behalf. Fundamental data is not a concern for sure, but it’s the ability to monitor liquidity, price volatility and news is a key to successful day trading. Traders also require a real-time margin and buy in the power updates. Brokers who allow to get multiple orders at the same time and customize trading defaults.

Pros :

  1. Extremely low fees.
  2. An exceedingly customizable platform with watchlists capable to display over 450 columns
  3. More than 120 technical indicators are available for the process charting.
  4. Great market scanner to make one stay on top of the current situation.
  5. The Algorithmic used for trading with automated capabilities is available here. Paper trading capability lets one test the strategies without risking money which could be a great way to familiarize with the algorithm.

Cons:

  1. The learning curve could become proficient by using TWS which is comparatively steep.
  2. Accounts with less than $100,000 in their assets are subjected to monthly inactivity fees.
  3. Many other brokers offer deeper technical analysis toolsets.
  4. Streaming on the real-time quotes is restricted to one device at a time.

 

  • Lightspeed

Pros:

  1. It allows having fast data feeds with flexible order routing.
  2. It provides excellent support with a stable platform.
  3. Livevol X is a free platform available to Lightspeed customers which has terrific analysis tools.

Cons:

  1. Accounts with a low balance must generate a minimum of $25/month in commissions or pay an inactivity fee anyhow.
  2. Futures trading options are available only on the RealTick Pro platform, which costs around $325/month.
  3. No mutual funds and forex are available here.

 

  • TradeStation

Pros:

  1. It has an excellent charting with technical analysis capabilities.
  2. It tends to have a massive collection of historical data.
  3. Portfolio Maestro features fine-tune trading strategies.
  4. Availability of flexible and customizable real-time market scanners

Cons:

  1. Not even a single piece of forex trading.
  2. Inability to develop trading systems on mobile or web.
  3. The language used to develop trading systems is very difficult to learn for a trader.

 

  • TD Ameritrade

Pros:

  1. It has a strong customizable charting package.
  2. It can stream real-time quotes that can be used on multiple devices simultaneously.
  3. A variety of scanners are used to help filter stocks, futures, and forex for trading opportunities.
  4. The trader can set up the defaults for order entry just to speed up sending an order to the market.

 

Cons:

  1. Standard commissions are high enough for day traders already, but frequent traders can negotiate their own fees for it.
  2. On the other hand, the standard margin rates are also way too high.

 

  • Tastyworks

Pros:

  1. Innovative pricing structure results in lowering the costs, particularly at the time of trading options.
  2. The platform was launched in the year 2017 and built on the latest technology, so it is very fast and stable.
  3. Scanners will help you find out the securities that are a lot volatile.
  4. Watchlists are sortable up to 50 data points.
  5. Quotes are not at all throttled, so they load on very quickly.

 

Cons:

  1. Commissions are fixed in here. There are no negotiations for an active trader.
  2. Margin fees are much higher than the average of frequent traders but it can be negotiated.
  3. Investors cannot place on multiple orders simultaneously.

 

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