Tradestation Review

Who is Tradestation?

Tradestation is one of the highest ranked full-service electronic brokerage. Their product portfolio is complete – cryptocurrency trading with bitcoin cash and other cryptos, stock and etf trades, forex trading, futures contracts, futures options, a mutual fund selection, option to trade bonds, penny stocks, free trades (stocks), and automated trading with a minimum deposit. The core of Tradestation’s advantage is their desktop trading platform, which allows access and automation to all of the products listed above. It has almost all of the features of a fully featured professional trading platform, for $99 a month or by holding certain amounts in the tradestation account.

Tradestation has also been named #1 broker by sites like Nerdwallet, Stockbrokers.com, TradingView, Benzinga, Stocks & Commodities, Investor’s Business Daily, Investopedia, Barron’s and Investor’s Business Daily. This consistent #1 ranking by all of these sources is truly unique, no other electronic broker can match these accolades. It is based on the tradestation desktop trading platform, the web trading platform, and the mobile trading app. Tradestation also provides trading ideas, fundamental indicators, historical market data, and because Tradestation offers, a singular focus on Tradestation customers, trade execution, advanced trades, and commission free trades.

Who owns Tradestation?

Tradestation Group is the parent company to multiple brokerages and futures enabled accounts, and they have recently opened a crypto trading account but you must have an active equity account to trade cryptos with Tradestation.

Tradestation was created by two brothers Bill and Ralph Cruz out of their garage when they pooled $2,400 to open a futures trading account. Bill began testing trading strategies himself with no formal coding knowledge — this developed into the EasyLanguage, the trading platforms coding alternative for non-specialists.

In 1997 “Omega Research” (an older name for Tradestation) went public in 1997 on the Nasdaq In 2001, Tradestation renamed itself and became a full-service online broker with a desktop platform, registration with the financial industry regulatory authority, the securities and exchange commission, and recently a suite of six cryptocurrencies which require their own account to trade in.

In 2011, the Monex Group (a leading Japanese brokerage) bought Tradestation Group and assumed all of the assets and liabilities. The Monex group owns all of TradeStation group’s equities, and therefore is a member of the NYSE, FINRA, SIPC, DTCC, OCC, CBOE, CSE, ISE, and NASDAQ OMX. Tradestation international, a Financial Services Authority authorizes Tradestation to operate in London and various other international markets.

Tradestation Product Available

Tradestation Desktop Platform 10

An advanced trading platform to help you design, test, optimize, monitor, and automate your custom trading strategies.

• Dynamic market-scanning tools.
• Fully customizable charting.
• Fast and reliable trade execution.
• Advanced order management.

Tradestation Platform — Online Brokers

If you’ve got internet access, you’ve got TradeStation – no installation required. Our powerful, easy-to-use web platform works in conjunction with TradeStation’s iOS and Android apps for a unified experience that uses TradeStation’s cloud technology. The desktop platform does not trade transaction fee mutual funds even for active traders.

Tradestation Platform — Mobile App

Access the markets and place trades on your time – all on the go from the palm of your hand.  We’re one of the highly-rated mobile trading apps in the Apple and Google app stores.

Tradestation Product Options

Theme Based Portfolios

Although Tradestation does not have ready made theme based portfolios to invest in, the Tradestation desktop platform for active traders has something called “Portfolio Maestro” where you can back test the performance of a group of strategies in a category or “Theme”.

Manage Taxes

Tradestation cannot help you actually complete your taxes, however they allow you to download every trade in a year for tax preparation.

Tradestation Does Not Support DRIP (Dividend Re-investment Programs).

You have to re-invest your dividends into the stock manually.

Are OTC trades possible through Tradestation?

OTC Markets provides additional bid and ask information for OTC stocks as a supplement to the NASDAQ-sourced bid, ask, and trade information for OTC stocks. Level I data from OTC Markets includes additional inside bid and ask data for OTC stocks, while Level II data from OTC Markets includes additional inside bid and ask data for OTC stocks plus additional levels of depth for bid and ask for OTC stocks.

If using the mobile app, there are no commissions on OTC trades or penny stocks. If you want to trade OTC products with the Tradestation platform, there is a $10 per trade charge.

In order to subscribe to OTC Level I service, you must first subscribe to real-time data for NASDAQ Package 1, 2, or 3. In order to subscribe to OTC Level II service, you must first subscribe to NASDAQ Package 2 or 3.

Can I vote my Shares if I only have fractional ownership?

No, because Tradestation does not support fractional ownership in any way.

Tradestation Education

There are free modules for basic introduction to the tradestation platform’s including the tradestation desktop platform, the web trading platform, and the mobile app functionality. The site has not added any cryptocurrency trading education as of yet.

Tradestation Commitment to Execution Quality

Why can’t I withdraw my ACH funds immediately?

ACH deposits take 7 days to settle, while wire transfers are available immediately depending on your bank or financial institution.

Customer Service

Tradestation offers live chat from Mon-Fri, 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. You can also select “call me” and a human will call you from a support queue.

Tradestation Special Offers

You can trade futures in your IRA account at just $0.65 cents per contract per side. Regardless of the account type— traditional IRA, Roth IRA, SEP IRA or SIMPLE IRA — TradeStation gives you the tools you need to actively manage your retirement savings. Use promo code 0035AEZP to get this special offer.

Can I trade cryptocurrency on Tradestation?

Yes, but they are limited to Bitcoin (BTC), Bitcoin Cash (BCH), Ethereum (ETH), Litecoin (LTC) and Ripple (XRP).

Tradestation Fees

• Stocks & ETFs $0 commission
• Stock Options $0 commission + $0.60 per contract
• Futures $0 commission  + $1.50 per contract, per side Micro Futures $0 commission  + $0.50 per contract, per side
• Futures Options $0 commission   + $1.50 per contract, per side
• Available Platforms   Web Trading Free Mobile Apps Free TradeStation Desktop Free
• Real-time data for Stocks, ETFs, Stock Options, Futures, Futures Options, Indices and Cryptocurrencies Free
• Minimum Deposit Which Meets Regulatory Account Balances

How fast can I make my first trade?

Tradestation takes one day to settle your funds, so you can trade open markets 24 hours after you fund your account.

How many subscribers does Tradestation have?

178,000, 36% higher than last year

Do you pay taxes on Tradestation?

Yes, you are responsible for all mandated taxes on capital gains and day trading. If you have a complicated portfolio or a large number of different products it may make sense to work with a CPA to correctly submit your taxes.

Tradestation Order Execution

Price Improvement

Tradestation Group has provided $21 million in price improvement for advanced traders, options trades, mobile trading platform, and through the tradestation’s trading platform.

The average price improvement for active trading is $6.67 per contract.

Average speed was only $.041 seconds per contract, 96% better than the rest of the market.

About The Tradestation Data Network

The following describes the type of market data (real-time and historical) that is available by symbol category.

Stocks – Tick-by-tick data is available for 6 months back, one-minute data from January 1991, and daily data from 1968.

When a date (such as 1991 for stocks) is given, it applies to those companies that were trading at that time and still trading today. Therefore, not every symbol may actually have data back to 1991.

Futures – Tick by tick for 6 months back, one minute data from 1982 (depending on market) in individual contract files by delivery month and year, daily pit market data for individual contracts from 1960’s, back adjusted continuous contracts for most popular markets from 1960’s.  Note: inception date for some markets is much later (Example: First day of trading on S&P 500 futures is April 1982). Data back to early 1960’s is mostly CME grains markets, Cotton, mid 1960’s is Live Cattle.

Forex – Tick by tick for 6 months back, one minute bar data from October 2002, daily data from 1998.

Funds – Daily mutual fund and money market fund data from 1994.

Indexes  – Tick-by-tick data is available for 6 months back. Start dates on indexes vary, but will generally include at least one-minute data from February 2001 and daily data from 2000.  Other popular indexes include the following additional data:

• Dow Jones Industrial ($INDU/$DJI) – 4/1/1993 minute, 1/2/1920 daily
• S&P 100 ($OEX/$OEX.X) – 1/2/1987 minute, 1/3/1978 daily
• S&P 500 ($INX/$SPX.X) – 2/1/1983 minute, 1/4/1960 daily
• S&P 400 Midcap ($MID.X) – 1/2/1998 minute 7/1/1994 daily
• Russell 2000 ($RUT.X/$IUX) – 1/2/1997 minute, 9/10/1987 daily
• Nasdaq 100 ($NDX.X) – 1/2/1997 minute, 11/7/1990 daily

Options – Stock, Futures, and Index options have 6 months tick, consolidated exchange minute and daily trade data for all currently trading options. Regional stock option symbols are available on a streaming real time basis. Historical options symbols are removed once they expire since symbols are reused by the exchanges.

Tradestation Global Trading Fees