TOS Broker Overview
Thinkorswim also known as TOS is one of the most highly rated desktop trading platforms. The thinkorswim
platform is owned by and accessed through the broker Charles Schwab. We evaluated both the thinkorswim
platform and Charles Schwab brokerage to provide insights into each.
Charles Schwab is a pioneer in the brokerage industry, and they are one of the market leaders today.
Charles Schwab processes over 1,00,000 trades per day, on average, for its over
32.9 million clients. They offer a great variety of
products and services to traders and investors of all kinds.
Opening an Account
Opening a new brokerage account with TOS is simple and straightforward. First, click on their promotion
link: Get $0 trading commissions free Charles Schwab account.
Then hit "Open new account" button and
you'll get to account application screens. Information required includes
Social Security Number or Individual Taxpayer Identification Number as well as some information about a current employer.
If an applicant already has a different Charles Schwab account, he or she can simply provide their current account information to speed up the
process.
TOS Brokerage Products
Charles Schwab offers trading in stocks, options, mutual funds, ETFs, futures, and FOREX. One of the great advantages of having a brokerage account with Charles Schwab is the ability to trade all of these different types of securities in one account. Many brokers offer trading in some of these securities but there aren’t many brokers that offer this wide variety of trading in one package.
Charles Schwab offers both cash accounts and margin accounts, as well as portfolio margin accounts for more experienced, high-balance traders. Qualifying investors can take advantage of IPOs offered through Charles Schwab.
TOS Broker Services
Charles Schwab’s services range from a paid securities lending program all the way to one-on-one financial guidance with an Investment Advisor. Some of the other services Charles Schwab offers include access to a nationwide network of investment branches, a dividend reinvestment program, cash-management services, and planning and retirement tools.
Charles Schwab offers incredible free research services for every type of security as well as a mountain of free educational resources covering virtually any topic about investing/trading. A few important services that Charles Schwab lacks are fractional share trading and any type of managed accounts or wealth management programs.
TOS Brokerage Commissions
Charles Schwab has a good price offering consisting of low commissions and fees across almost all products. Charles Schwab offers $0 commissions for U.S. listed stocks, ETFs, and options trades placed online. Options trades do have a fee of $.65 per contract on all buys and sells. One thing to watch out for is that Charles Schwab’s $0 stock commissions don’t apply to OTC stocks which carry a commission of $6.95 per trade.
Mutual fund investors will be pleased to know that Charles Schwab offers over 3,000 no-transaction-fee mutual funds. Fixed Income investors will be happy to know that Charles Schwab offers $0 commissions for US treasuries purchased at auction and a $1 commission per bond for online secondary marketplace transactions. FOREX traders won’t pay any commissions on FOREX trades, although Charles Schwab builds a markup/markdown into the bid/ask spread, and futures traders will only pay a $2.25 fee per contract on futures trades.
The only real negative in Charles Schwab’s pricing is their margin rates. Their margin rates start at 10.25% for margin balances under $10,000 and their rates get only slightly lower the more you borrow with their lowest published margin rate being 8.25% for margin balances of 250,000.00 - $499,999.99.
Open TOS/Charles Schwab Account
Open Thinkorswim Account
TOS Desktop Trading Platform Overview
Charles Schwab’s acquisition of the thinkorswim platform revolutionized its offering to clients by bringing an extremely powerful desktop trading platform to the masses. Amazingly, Charles Schwab offers all of its clients completely free access to thinkorswim. There are no restrictions to the program that require paying extra fees either. Thinkorswim is absolutely packed with features and tools that cater to both new and experienced traders as well as long-term investors.
TOS Charting
Thinkorswim’s charting features and tools are the platform’s bread and butter. Thinkorswim’s exceptional charting is probably what the platform is best known for. For starters, you can customize any aspect of the charts that you can think of including the type of chart, type of cursor, and the colors.
You can choose from over 300 different technical indicators and patterns to include on a chart as well as customize each one. You can utilize over 20 different drawing tools to add drawings such as trendlines, arrows, and Fibonacci indicators to a chart. You can easily zoom in and out of charts or highlight a specific area of a chart with your cursor to zoom in on just that area. You can even save charts, print charts, and create a shareable link to share a chart.
TOS Interface & Customization
The thinkorswim platform has a fantastic-looking user interface overall. In addition, thinkorswim allows you to customize virtually every facet of the platform. There are unlimited customization options to make the features of the platform and the platform itself look exactly how you like.
Just a few of the hundreds of the customization options that are available include being able to extensively design the look and feel of charts, setting hotkeys to perform navigation in the platform, being able to completely control the sizing, placement, and use of windows within the platform, and saving and naming platform layouts.
TOS Order Entry Tools
A major part of thinkorswim’s appeal for serious day traders is the features and tools that allow traders to place trades quickly and efficiently. One of the order entry features is customizable hotkeys including having hotkeys such as sell the bid, buy the ask, and cancel all orders.
Another order entry feature is ladder trading which allows traders to view a ladder containing prices close to the security’s current price and simply click on the price to buy or sell at that price with one click. An order entry feature that makes trading options more efficient is being able to queue up an options order with one click by clicking on the bid or ask in the options chain.
TOS Practice Trading Tools
Thinkorswim lets users choose between live trading and paper trading using “paper money.” Paper trading is a wonderful feature for new traders to learn or for experienced traders to practice different strategies without having real money on the line. Another thinkorswim tool that allows users to test and learn is called thinkBack. The thinkBack tool is designed specifically for back-testing options strategies by analyzing hypothetical options trades.
The one tool that sets thinkorswim apart from most other desktop trading platforms is called OnDemand. The OnDemand tool is an incredibly unique and powerful tool that lets you go back to any date and time and replay a live stream of a securities price action. For example, if you wanted to watch the price action of Tesla on a chart on the day it split on 8/31/21, you simply hit the OnDemand button, enter the date, and choose the time of that day you want the stream to start. The OnDemand feature is available for replaying stocks, futures, and FOREX.
Types of TOS Users
TOS brokerage was originally created by a former Options Market Maker at the Chicago Mercantile Exchange. Subsequently, at its core, thinkorswim is designed for serious traders of options, stocks, and futures. However, thinkorswim is also perfect for new traders to practice and learn about trading because of the paper trading feature and other practice tools discussed. Swing traders and long-term investors can get a lot out of the platform as well by utilizing the market data and charting features.
TOS Broker Review Recap
Without TOS, Charles Schwab is one of the best overall brokers in the industry. When you
throw in thinkorswim on top of everything else Charles Schwab has to offer, they are hard to beat. No matter what type of investor/trader you are, it would be worth your time to head over to Charles Schwab and give thinkorswim a try for free.
Open TOS/Charles Schwab Account
Open Thinkorswim Account
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