Options House currently is offering about the best deal for people who use options.
Stocks are $4.95 per trade
Options on stocks are $4.95 per trade + 0.50 per contract
Options on indexes are $4.95 per trade + 1.02 per contract (SPX, RUT, VIX, etc)
- There are no artificial, firm created, minimums for doing things like selling puts. If you have the cash or margin available, you may sell a put. This common sense attitude prevails for everything they do. Many, many other firms will let you short a stock, but not sell a put, even if you have the cash to cover the strike price sold.
- In times of market duress, such as during the selloff/correction this last August, the firm (or the clearing firm) requires additional margin, up to 100% in some cases. Be aware if you commonly carry a margin balance, to plan for this type of thing to happen once in awhile. Not all stock symbols were affected this last time, but only things that made sense such as leveraged 3x ETFs.
The trading screen is the primary view when you log-in, and other stuff branches from this screen. It will take a while to know where to find everything not directly needed for trading. Handy is just about anything actually wanted in order to trade. Options have their own tab found on the main trade screen.
If you want some help with account information, give them a call. Telephone support is good. Do not expect a timely answer when using email.
For research, you won't like anything they have. Well, I've never really liked the research available at any broker. This firm makes little pretense in the research area. However, the site does track all kinds of market activity that may be useful when looking for a trade, and also has cool options screeners an so forth. While OH reviews rightly say the research stuff is minimal, they never include the good stuff available. Again, if it's trade related, there is something here for you. For ordinary research, go somewhere else such as Seeking Alpha, NASDAQ, Yahoo finance, etc (which I'm willing to bet, is where you go for research anyway).
Good luck, and many happy trades to you.
This review is the subjective opinion of an Investimonials member and not of Investimonials LLC
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