Looking for a broker geared toward the active trader? Lightspeed may be the answer. Lightspeed is a direct access broker that offers everything you need to analyze a variety of investment products in their trading platform. With ultra-low commissions and a great trading platform, Lightspeed might be your next broker.

The Trading Platform

Lightspeed’s trading platform is an all in one package. Lightspeed is one of the few brokers to offering a great charting package within their platform. Their platform is not for beginners, strictly for the experienced active trader. You can see a basic layout of their platform below.

If you do not understand or have problems with the desktop trading platform, they also have a web trader platform that will seem familiar to anyone who has ever used any online broker. Their web trader platform also provides a good amount of fundamental analysis.

Pricing and Commissions

Stocks – $0.00395 per share plus market center fees.
OTC BB and Pink sheets – $10 per order.
Options – $0.50 per contract, no minimum order.
Futures – $0.50 per order plus exchange fees.
Minimum Account Opening Funds – $2,000

For a full list of fees listed here.

Overall, Lightspeed is a solid broker with cheap commission and a great platform to trade from. If you are looking for a new broker, I would advise you to get Lightspeed a try.

If you are an active trader looking for a way to save on commissions then Interactive Brokers is probably the best choice for you. With their low commissions, many buy and hold investors have started using Interactive Brokers. So what does Interactive Brokers have to offer and at what price?

Investing/Trading Products Available

Stocks, ETFs, options, futures, bonds, warrants, mutual funds…and so on (click here for full list). Interactive Brokers offers everything that a retail investor can trade. With Interactive Brokers, you are not limited to just U.S. investments as Interactive Brokers allows trading in 80 different markets.

Trading Platform

Interactive Brokers has a variety of trading platforms to trade from whether using their desktop platform, web trader platform, or their mobile platform, you will always have a way to get out of a trade whether at your computer or not. As for their software, executions are great allowing you to enter orders on charts or order tickets. Their charting software offers very basic technical analysis tools, so a charting program (QuoteTracker, which is free, or a paid program like eSignal) is almost mandatory when using Interactive Brokers for technical trading. Interactive Brokers is geared toward the active trader so fundamental investors will have to do their research somewhere else.

Fees

Interactive Brokers is one of, if not the, lowest cost brokers. There is a minimum of $10,000 to open an account. Depending on what you products you trade, some additional fees may apply for data feeds. See a full list of fees here.

Overall, Interactive Brokers is the best broker for active traders and is quickly becoming a favorite among passive investors.

MB Trading is a direct access broker. They offer cheap commissions with a variety of trading platforms (desktop, web, mobile, and MetaTrader 4). MB Trading also has a wide range of investment products (stocks, ETFs, options, futures, mutual funds, bonds, Forex, and pink sheets and OTC BB stocks) to choose from.

Commissions

Stocks and ETFs -$4.95 per trade (10,0000 share limit) or $0.0075 per share with a $4.95 minimum.
Options – $0.95 per contract no minimum.
Futures – $0.95 per contract plus exchange fees.
Mutual Funds – $12.95 per transaction.
Bonds – $12.95 per transaction.
Forex – $2.95 per $100,000 traded.
Pink Sheets and OTC BB – $8.95 per trade with no share limit.

Software

As for their trading platforms…well you do not get much. MB Trading Desktop is nice if you like looking at numbers but do not expect any charts unless you are trading Forex. The only charting software will get with MB Trading comes with the MetaTrader 4 platform used for Forex. If you need charts, QuoteTracker is free charting software that works well with MB Trading. Otherwise, you will have to get a paid charting program like eSignal. Although the MB Trading platform is free, some data feeds fees will apply. These fees are waived after a specified amount of trades. See data fees here.

Overall

The commissions are cheaper than discount brokers are but they lack in software. If you already have research tools for fundamental analysis and willing to use free or paid charting software for technical analysis then MB Trading might be worth a look.

Tired of paying high brokerage fees? Looking to lower your brokerage commissions? Charles Schwab recently began offering free ETF trades when you open a brokerage account with them. Are the benefits worth it?

ETFs Available To Trade Free Now

Schwab US Broad Market ETF (SCHB)
Schwab US Large-Cap ETF (SCHX)
Schwab US Small-Cap ETF (SCHA)
Schwab International Equity ETF (SCHF)

Available In December

Schwab US Large-Cap Growth ETF (SCHG)
Schwab US Large-Cap Value ETF (SCHV)
Schwab International Small Cap ETF (SCHC)
Schwab Emerging Markets Equity ETF (SCHE)

Are Charles Schwab’s ETFs Right For You?

If you are a investor looking for longer-term investments or trades and like using indexes; then these ETFs are worth looking at. For traders and shorter-term investors, the volume is too low for me to recommend them. When trading stocks and ETFs (other than the Schwab ETFs listed above), commissions rates are $8.95 – $19.95, depending on the amount of trades placed.

Understand that commission free trading is nice, but with Charles Schwab, you are limited to a few ETFs that you can trade. If the volume rises in these ETFs, it might be worth looking into. For now, the products are too limited and commissions on other ETFs and stocks are higher than most online brokers.

Get more information on opening an account and Charles Schwab ETFs @ www.schwab.com.

Now that TD Ameritrade owns ThinkOrSwim, I have thought about the consequences of the commissions going up for ThinkOrSwim traders when the hand over takes place. TD Ameritrade’s commission structure is very different from that of ThinkOrSwim’s. TD Ameritrade also has another broker, Izone, which is not as publicized as ThinkOrSwim. So how does Izone compete with ThinkOrSwim?

Do you trade futures or currencies?

If you trade futures or currencies, you will have to go with ThinkOrSwim. Izone does not offer trading these types of investments.

Stocks, Options, and Mutual Funds

Now, the debating begins. If you trade stocks, Izone charges $5 per self-direct trade and ThinkOrSwim has two pricing options. First, you can pay $0.015 per share with a minimum of $5 or pay $9.95 per trade for orders up to 5,000 shares.

Option trading with Izone will cost you $5 plus $0.75 per contract. ThinkOrSwim charges $0.95 – $1.50 per contract, depending on number of option trades per month and the amount of assets you have in ThinkOrSwim accounts. If you trade just a few option trades per month with only a few contracts, ThinkOrSwim might be a better choice but for larger trades, you might want to look at Izone.

ThinkOrSwim offers three mutual fund trades per month at no cost after that it costs $15 per trade. Mutual funds at Izone are dependent on the type of fund purchased.  Izone charges nothing for NTF (No Transaction-Fee) and Load funds but charges $17.99 for No Load Funds.

Customer Support

ThinkOrSwim is excellent! Call them and you will get questions answered or problems fixed. Izone, however, does not offer tech support over the phone, only through e-mail. TD Ameritrade made Izone for the independent trader that needs very little help.

Trading Platforms

ThinkOrSwim and Izone have two different trading platforms geared towards different traders. ThinkOrSwim’s platform gears toward option traders; Izone is more for stock traders. Izone offers the same trading platform (Command Center 2.0, StrategyDesk, Pattern Matcher, etc) that you would receive if you were a regular TD Ameritrade client. Both have great platforms depending on what you are looking for.

Different Needs, Different Brokers

In the end, these brokers are very different from each other and offer services geared towards different traders. Stock and options traders will find both brokers useful but if you want to trade more than stocks, options, and mutual funds; you only have one choice…ThinkOrSwim.