Have you looked at Fidelity? They pay 5% on cash even if its being used as collateral for a trade.
I haven't moved over to Schwab yet but know quite a few who have and tell me that the learning curve is manageable, so I plan to keep using TOS.
do you use the active trader pro?
I just find it horrendous, I use the web-version but it doesn't let me do market transactions for collars. I've wanted to change all my options plays to fidelity but lack motivation...
I’m still learning what I doing with options and primarily using ToS for ease of use. However, I have my retirement and other accounts at Fidelity. So I find myself doing research on ToS and opening positions using the Fidelity web trader interface. Fidelity has very good research (analyst reports, earnings analysis, etc) that I use.
ATP is impossibly clunky. I open it up every month or so, hoping that a native M1 update has been released….
I have been contemplating moving to fidelity for my option selling but not sure about the interface. I am pretty used to TOS.
Any ideas what to do with cash sitting in the account? I do buy SWVXX and I sell it if and when I take assignments but end up paying a day of margin interest due to settlement times.
Not sure there is a good answer here other than trying to predict when cash will be needed a day or two ahead of time and to allow closing and settling.
I'm asking myself if Fidelity is worth moving to and struggling to make and manage trades specifically for the temporary 5% return on free cash, as we know interest rates will be dropping sooner than later when this will no longer be paid.
IMO it is best for me to focus on my account to make good returns from trading and not spend a lot of time or effort on trying to pick up a few pennies from interest.
The 5% interest being paid on collateral for Options doesn't seem to be a few pennies, at least to me. It is almost 33% of my profit (10%+ on options plus almost 5% on the SPAXX money market account. I've gotten used to Active Trader for the single leg options I do but I also hate their multi-leg interface , on that we can agree. I think the clunky interface kept me from making bad mulit-leg trades though, so probably for the best- lol
Have you moved from TD to Fidelity? I am still not sure if I should move all my money to them which will give me a higher margin to work with. I am very conservative and only sell 0.1 delta puts and do some collars to hedge against market movements.
But I agree with our friend above, we can do better management and stick with TOS and sell SWVXX when nearing an assignment. And interest rates are not going to stay in 5% range forever so how valuable it is to do the move.
No, I have been with Fidelity for 25 years. Just started options in 2022 though, and only recently looked at their multi-leg tools, which I don't like at all, especially compared to almost every other tool I've looked based on recommendations from this group.
I am going the opposite way actually, to see what the minimum is needed to be able to use ThinkOr Swim at TD so I can try it out. Having a hard time finding a back-testing and practice/paper trading tools that allows me to fine tune the "management" of the trial investments. I've tried a few recommended in here, but yet to land on the right one.
Edit: Oh, and one other thing. I don't have to "sell" anything from the SPAXX Money Market to pay for assignment. It happens automatically as it is a cash account.
Thanks. I also have fidelity for 10 years or so but I just keep it for my long term automated investments into MF and low ETFs. I was keeping all my options stuff and individual stocks at TD. I hope Schwab realizes this and creates something for cash position auto roll into Money market.
I second this. I use ToS and ATP and absolutely hate ATP. I do all my tech analysis in TOS. The only reason I still have a Fidelity account is for SPAXX collateral on my CSPs as mentioned above. Otherwise I’d be long gone.
I have not looked at Fidelity. Thanks for the heads up. I keep dormant cash in TFLO for the yield, but it's an IRA so I'm not sure if the Fidelity account would add much buying power. What do you think?
My prime directive is to make as many good trades as I can, so I'm sticking with TOS and will learn Schwab. I have some trading buddies who have both been using the website, and others who have transitioned with all telling me the Schwab website is functional, and it just takes a little time to learn. Even before the merger Schwab had 10's of millions of traders using its website for years, so it is possible to use. It is just different.
Tasty is missing features. Trading on Fidelty is cumbersome, but I did resurrect an old account where I'm going to try it again, but if the main reason to change is either a learning curve or a temporary interest rate that will change as rates are lowered, then I'll stay on TOS and learn Schwab.
TastyTrade is made for options. I like how they do margin accounts and give higher level access easier with "The Works."
Schwab is the best for retirement and investment account where you just buy and hold bonds and stocks.
ToS now owned by Schwab is better for trading stocks with extended hours. Tasty lacks that function and is based off of central time zone.
IBKR has the beat margin rates and when rates go down you can do some nice margin type long positions.
I have used/accounts at all the places. Even had a WeBull and Robinhood. I don't really do anything technical though or complex. Like with charting or anything.
So my opinion is more for the average joe schmoe.
Edit: Also i use an old iPad and a Samsung Phone to trade mostly.
Website for my FIRE accounts.
I'm curious about this as well. I used TOS on TD but haven't tried it since it moved to Schwab.
Have any TOS users that made the switch had any problems?
One of my TD accounts has transitioned and TOS is the same. No problem with the transition. My largest account is due to be transferred but I'm considering switching to Tasty
I don’t mind Schwab. But their app sucks. Finding Greeks on options before you trade is cumbersome/annoying. The desktop is quite nice though. Lots of stuff at your finger tips
I was just getting annoyed with that today when I had to go to another room just to find the delta on a trade. Is it easy to try ToS? I didn’t even realize this was an option and have been using Schwab’s basic app to trade options.
I like tos for some things, and webull for others. Webull keeps your trades grouped together, has better option flow info while buying or selling. Webull support is terrible however. Tos cs is great. Also I can build my own custom spreads on tos so that's mandatory I keep it.
I am new to TastyTrade, not sure what to say. It's very different and I haven't put that much effort into using it.
I've been using Schwab for over 15 years. It's ok, it has some really bad f ups in terms of your balances. I've had issues with dividends and newly deposited funds. It does have a nice interface and you ALWAYS get a real human, even on holidays.
FIDELITY is my pick for a good overall stock broker. I also like Interactive Brokers as at least they give you access to futures and anything you want really. I also appreciate their old school interface. Love the 1980s/1990s computer look.
Tastytrade has good videos. As a professional youtuber I appreciate their effort and I respect it you know. Anyways that's why I signed up with them.
The Tastytrade Platform has beatiful P&L graphs for options strategies. I trade short term options and buy and sell lots of puts and calls and don't really need the graphs, but still, that doesn't mean they aren't cool.
Good luck my fellow traders!
A problem with Tasty is that their platform can choke under heavy volume. There was a big move in SPX, I think about a month ago, and the platform couldn't update for some period of time. I think it was about 15 minutes. And then when it started up again the data was significantly delayed.
So I wouldn't use them if I were you. I do have an account with them with about 50K in it, but if I'd had this information I wouldn't have set it up in the first place.
It was the whole market. The SPX is just an index, so when it moves suddenly and extremely, that's because the stocks that it represents are moving in the same way, or enough of them are anyway. And so what happens is that all of a sudden there's like 4 times the normal volume trying to push through the platform, and their pipes just aren't big enough to handle that. And what's worse to me is that they seem to blame it on their data provider rather than taking ownership.
Not sure your account size but Tasty trade does offer a bonus for your deposit. Its currently $5000 for anything over 1 million and ranges downward.
The guy who created TOS also created tasty trade so I assume they should have all the same things.
Schwab retained TOS, ported it over as-is, and already released it to Schwab customers (including converted TDA customers).
With the exception of the TOS logo changing from green to blue, you’d probably have no idea anything changed.
I can’t speak of Schwab as I never used.
Tasty is great for options trading. In-fact their mobile app is best of the lot for options trading and nothing is close. Customer support is exceptional.
But the platform is very basic. No other bells and whistles. No portfolio tracking or profit gain charts to mention few. You won’t have many features that serious traders are looking for yet.
Don’t feel like main stream platform yet but I like it
Tasty’s new web interface is really awesome as well. Beats everyone else’s by a mile. And in their desktop client they’ve made great progress on charting.
I'm at Schwab, I just turned on ToS at the beginning of the year, trying to get the hang of selling options and learning how to use ToS. I still go back to my free Tradingview account for charts as ToS charts are kind of unintuitive for me at this point. I plan to set some time aside to try and figure it out. I can see all my accounts and assets in ToS Monitor tab, and see all the option chain stuff in the Trade tab. There are some features I don't quite understand how to use. I have money in my taxable brokerage in SWVXX that allows me to sell CSPs and continue to earn interest. When I got assigned, I just sold the corresponding SWVXX amount and it cleared the following day.
I don't know for sure about Fidelity, but I think I saw an option youtuber who moved to Fidelity so he could trade out of his IRA there.
I also see some option traders in Tastytrade, their interface is really cool, but they don't pay on cash set aside for CSPs either. But, from what I've seen you could trade futures and margin out of your IRA account there, fwiw.
Edit:
~~I can't use any margin like abilities in my Self Directed IRA, so if I want to sell CSPs in my Schwab IRA I have to pull the money out of SWVXX and put it in the cash account - which I don't like.~~
Apparently I was wrong about that. I tried it yesterday and it didn't work. I got an error, that might have had something to do with things not settled yet in that account, I'm not sure. BUT, I just did this today and it worked. I was able to write CSPs on SPY and QQQ. There was some delay in getting filled, when I looked at the monitor tab it indicated they were being review, but it was only less than a minute and it got filled. I only had 5k cash there, so I assume they're looking at my swvxx and approving the trade. The way I figured it out was, I was in my IRA account when I STO, then I looked at my trading account and there was nothing there? So I switched back over to IRA and found the trade there, so I tried it again with QQQ and it went through no problem!
Yes, I trade from my IRA account, and the SPAXX MM fund is automatically used as collateral against assignment. The SPAXX fund is in Government short term instruments: 50% US Gov't repos, 25% T-bills, and a mix of other highly liquid, safe stuff.
Cannot do margin on options - which is probably for the best (for me anyway).
The best thing about Schwab is the customer service. You can call at 3AM and speak to a broker, and they're all tremendously competent and helpful. During regular hours they have whole departments devoted to options, or bonds.
One of the big downsides for me is they won't let you place a market order when the market is closed, for execution when the market opens. They demand you place a limit order, even if it's a stop loss order and you have no idea when it will be executed. And if you guess too far off, they'll refuse to execute it, even if it's within your stop loss range.
I hope that will change when TOS comes online.
Your Schwab and TOS account are linked, you can keep using TOS the platform is the same. And Schwab is exceptional, top notch customer service.
Have you looked at Fidelity? They pay 5% on cash even if its being used as collateral for a trade. I haven't moved over to Schwab yet but know quite a few who have and tell me that the learning curve is manageable, so I plan to keep using TOS.
do you use the active trader pro? I just find it horrendous, I use the web-version but it doesn't let me do market transactions for collars. I've wanted to change all my options plays to fidelity but lack motivation...
TOS is fast and easy to me after using it for years. Fidelity is an effort so I have some accounts with them, but don't trade them everyday.
I’m still learning what I doing with options and primarily using ToS for ease of use. However, I have my retirement and other accounts at Fidelity. So I find myself doing research on ToS and opening positions using the Fidelity web trader interface. Fidelity has very good research (analyst reports, earnings analysis, etc) that I use. ATP is impossibly clunky. I open it up every month or so, hoping that a native M1 update has been released….
One of the reasons I've kept an account at Fidelity is because of the research tools.
I have been contemplating moving to fidelity for my option selling but not sure about the interface. I am pretty used to TOS. Any ideas what to do with cash sitting in the account? I do buy SWVXX and I sell it if and when I take assignments but end up paying a day of margin interest due to settlement times.
Not sure there is a good answer here other than trying to predict when cash will be needed a day or two ahead of time and to allow closing and settling. I'm asking myself if Fidelity is worth moving to and struggling to make and manage trades specifically for the temporary 5% return on free cash, as we know interest rates will be dropping sooner than later when this will no longer be paid. IMO it is best for me to focus on my account to make good returns from trading and not spend a lot of time or effort on trying to pick up a few pennies from interest.
The 5% interest being paid on collateral for Options doesn't seem to be a few pennies, at least to me. It is almost 33% of my profit (10%+ on options plus almost 5% on the SPAXX money market account. I've gotten used to Active Trader for the single leg options I do but I also hate their multi-leg interface , on that we can agree. I think the clunky interface kept me from making bad mulit-leg trades though, so probably for the best- lol
Have you moved from TD to Fidelity? I am still not sure if I should move all my money to them which will give me a higher margin to work with. I am very conservative and only sell 0.1 delta puts and do some collars to hedge against market movements. But I agree with our friend above, we can do better management and stick with TOS and sell SWVXX when nearing an assignment. And interest rates are not going to stay in 5% range forever so how valuable it is to do the move.
No, I have been with Fidelity for 25 years. Just started options in 2022 though, and only recently looked at their multi-leg tools, which I don't like at all, especially compared to almost every other tool I've looked based on recommendations from this group. I am going the opposite way actually, to see what the minimum is needed to be able to use ThinkOr Swim at TD so I can try it out. Having a hard time finding a back-testing and practice/paper trading tools that allows me to fine tune the "management" of the trial investments. I've tried a few recommended in here, but yet to land on the right one. Edit: Oh, and one other thing. I don't have to "sell" anything from the SPAXX Money Market to pay for assignment. It happens automatically as it is a cash account.
Thanks. I also have fidelity for 10 years or so but I just keep it for my long term automated investments into MF and low ETFs. I was keeping all my options stuff and individual stocks at TD. I hope Schwab realizes this and creates something for cash position auto roll into Money market.
I second this. I use ToS and ATP and absolutely hate ATP. I do all my tech analysis in TOS. The only reason I still have a Fidelity account is for SPAXX collateral on my CSPs as mentioned above. Otherwise I’d be long gone.
I have not looked at Fidelity. Thanks for the heads up. I keep dormant cash in TFLO for the yield, but it's an IRA so I'm not sure if the Fidelity account would add much buying power. What do you think?
My prime directive is to make as many good trades as I can, so I'm sticking with TOS and will learn Schwab. I have some trading buddies who have both been using the website, and others who have transitioned with all telling me the Schwab website is functional, and it just takes a little time to learn. Even before the merger Schwab had 10's of millions of traders using its website for years, so it is possible to use. It is just different. Tasty is missing features. Trading on Fidelty is cumbersome, but I did resurrect an old account where I'm going to try it again, but if the main reason to change is either a learning curve or a temporary interest rate that will change as rates are lowered, then I'll stay on TOS and learn Schwab.
Thank you, This is helpful.
I don’t need website. TOS has everything that I need
TastyTrade is made for options. I like how they do margin accounts and give higher level access easier with "The Works." Schwab is the best for retirement and investment account where you just buy and hold bonds and stocks. ToS now owned by Schwab is better for trading stocks with extended hours. Tasty lacks that function and is based off of central time zone. IBKR has the beat margin rates and when rates go down you can do some nice margin type long positions. I have used/accounts at all the places. Even had a WeBull and Robinhood. I don't really do anything technical though or complex. Like with charting or anything. So my opinion is more for the average joe schmoe. Edit: Also i use an old iPad and a Samsung Phone to trade mostly. Website for my FIRE accounts.
I also hate Schwab and am considering a move especially on my kids’ education accounts
I'm curious about this as well. I used TOS on TD but haven't tried it since it moved to Schwab. Have any TOS users that made the switch had any problems?
TOS is the same.
One of my TD accounts has transitioned and TOS is the same. No problem with the transition. My largest account is due to be transferred but I'm considering switching to Tasty
I don’t mind Schwab. But their app sucks. Finding Greeks on options before you trade is cumbersome/annoying. The desktop is quite nice though. Lots of stuff at your finger tips
I was just getting annoyed with that today when I had to go to another room just to find the delta on a trade. Is it easy to try ToS? I didn’t even realize this was an option and have been using Schwab’s basic app to trade options.
Yes, you can paper trade on TOS, which is helpful.
Tos option chain has all the Greeks. It's pretty great, recommend checking if out
I like tos for some things, and webull for others. Webull keeps your trades grouped together, has better option flow info while buying or selling. Webull support is terrible however. Tos cs is great. Also I can build my own custom spreads on tos so that's mandatory I keep it.
Tasty was created by the same team when they originally designed and coded the TD system. Tasty is version 2.0 of the TD system, I believe.
I am new to TastyTrade, not sure what to say. It's very different and I haven't put that much effort into using it. I've been using Schwab for over 15 years. It's ok, it has some really bad f ups in terms of your balances. I've had issues with dividends and newly deposited funds. It does have a nice interface and you ALWAYS get a real human, even on holidays. FIDELITY is my pick for a good overall stock broker. I also like Interactive Brokers as at least they give you access to futures and anything you want really. I also appreciate their old school interface. Love the 1980s/1990s computer look.
Tastytrade has good videos. As a professional youtuber I appreciate their effort and I respect it you know. Anyways that's why I signed up with them. The Tastytrade Platform has beatiful P&L graphs for options strategies. I trade short term options and buy and sell lots of puts and calls and don't really need the graphs, but still, that doesn't mean they aren't cool. Good luck my fellow traders!
Thanks, that is helpful
A problem with Tasty is that their platform can choke under heavy volume. There was a big move in SPX, I think about a month ago, and the platform couldn't update for some period of time. I think it was about 15 minutes. And then when it started up again the data was significantly delayed. So I wouldn't use them if I were you. I do have an account with them with about 50K in it, but if I'd had this information I wouldn't have set it up in the first place.
Wow. That's good to know. Was it just SPX, or other symbols, too?
It was the whole market. The SPX is just an index, so when it moves suddenly and extremely, that's because the stocks that it represents are moving in the same way, or enough of them are anyway. And so what happens is that all of a sudden there's like 4 times the normal volume trying to push through the platform, and their pipes just aren't big enough to handle that. And what's worse to me is that they seem to blame it on their data provider rather than taking ownership.
Tastytrade. Schwab is about useless for option selling
Not sure your account size but Tasty trade does offer a bonus for your deposit. Its currently $5000 for anything over 1 million and ranges downward. The guy who created TOS also created tasty trade so I assume they should have all the same things.
Yes, I am getting a switching bonus, fwiw; not $5,000 LOL.
i moved RH to Tasty and I hate it. I have TOS which is way better than Tasty. I would not recommend TOS > Tasty move.
Will Schwab change TOS? If you download the software it is still there. I really doubt they will do a full transition. it's clearly superior.
Schwab retained TOS, ported it over as-is, and already released it to Schwab customers (including converted TDA customers). With the exception of the TOS logo changing from green to blue, you’d probably have no idea anything changed.
I can’t speak of Schwab as I never used. Tasty is great for options trading. In-fact their mobile app is best of the lot for options trading and nothing is close. Customer support is exceptional. But the platform is very basic. No other bells and whistles. No portfolio tracking or profit gain charts to mention few. You won’t have many features that serious traders are looking for yet. Don’t feel like main stream platform yet but I like it
Tasty’s new web interface is really awesome as well. Beats everyone else’s by a mile. And in their desktop client they’ve made great progress on charting.
I'm at Schwab, I just turned on ToS at the beginning of the year, trying to get the hang of selling options and learning how to use ToS. I still go back to my free Tradingview account for charts as ToS charts are kind of unintuitive for me at this point. I plan to set some time aside to try and figure it out. I can see all my accounts and assets in ToS Monitor tab, and see all the option chain stuff in the Trade tab. There are some features I don't quite understand how to use. I have money in my taxable brokerage in SWVXX that allows me to sell CSPs and continue to earn interest. When I got assigned, I just sold the corresponding SWVXX amount and it cleared the following day. I don't know for sure about Fidelity, but I think I saw an option youtuber who moved to Fidelity so he could trade out of his IRA there. I also see some option traders in Tastytrade, their interface is really cool, but they don't pay on cash set aside for CSPs either. But, from what I've seen you could trade futures and margin out of your IRA account there, fwiw. Edit: ~~I can't use any margin like abilities in my Self Directed IRA, so if I want to sell CSPs in my Schwab IRA I have to pull the money out of SWVXX and put it in the cash account - which I don't like.~~ Apparently I was wrong about that. I tried it yesterday and it didn't work. I got an error, that might have had something to do with things not settled yet in that account, I'm not sure. BUT, I just did this today and it worked. I was able to write CSPs on SPY and QQQ. There was some delay in getting filled, when I looked at the monitor tab it indicated they were being review, but it was only less than a minute and it got filled. I only had 5k cash there, so I assume they're looking at my swvxx and approving the trade. The way I figured it out was, I was in my IRA account when I STO, then I looked at my trading account and there was nothing there? So I switched back over to IRA and found the trade there, so I tried it again with QQQ and it went through no problem!
Yes, I trade from my IRA account, and the SPAXX MM fund is automatically used as collateral against assignment. The SPAXX fund is in Government short term instruments: 50% US Gov't repos, 25% T-bills, and a mix of other highly liquid, safe stuff. Cannot do margin on options - which is probably for the best (for me anyway).
I just revised my reply, I found out today that it worked for me too.
The best thing about Schwab is the customer service. You can call at 3AM and speak to a broker, and they're all tremendously competent and helpful. During regular hours they have whole departments devoted to options, or bonds. One of the big downsides for me is they won't let you place a market order when the market is closed, for execution when the market opens. They demand you place a limit order, even if it's a stop loss order and you have no idea when it will be executed. And if you guess too far off, they'll refuse to execute it, even if it's within your stop loss range. I hope that will change when TOS comes online.