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With thinkorswim® Desktop you get access to elite-level trading tools and a platform backed by insights, education, and a dedicated trade desk. Experience the unparalleled power of a fully customizable trading experience, designed to help you nail even the most complex strategies and techniques.
With thinkorswim® Desktop you get access to elite-level trading tools and a platform backed by insights, education, and a dedicated trade desk. Experience the unparalleled power of a fully customizable trading experience, designed to help you nail even the most complex strategies and techniques.

RTD is an Excel function that, for our purposes, opens up communications with ThinkOrSwim. RTD can act upon information sent between parenthesis in a particular order: 1. 'TOS.RTD' is sent as the 1st RTD parameter. It’s the quote-enclosed name of a ThinkOrSwim function that’s loaded into memory when you run ThinkOrSwim.

Content intended for educational/informational purposes only. Not investment advice, or a recommendation of any security, strategy, or account type.

Be sure to understand all risks involved with each strategy, including commission costs, before attempting to place any trade. Clients must consider all relevant risk factors, including their own personal financial situations, before trading.

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Market volatility, volume, and system availability may delay account access and trade executions.

Past performance of a security or strategy does not guarantee future results or success.

Options are not suitable for all investors as the special risks inherent to options trading may expose investors to potentially rapid and substantial losses. Minitool partition wizard ultimate full. Options trading subject to TD Ameritrade review and approval. Please read Characteristics and Risks of Standardized Options before investing in options.

Supporting documentation for any claims, comparisons, statistics, or other technical data will be supplied upon request.

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Investing is a complicated process, so the trading platform you use should have the tech to support it and make your life easier. TradeStation and TD Ameritrade’s thinkorswim know that. So these two online brokers deliver dynamic investment tools to their userbase of active traders. However, every investor has different needs. Choosing the right brokerage to fit those requirements will bring out the strengths in your investment strategy. Here’s what you should know if you are considering TradeStation or thinkorswim as your online broker.

Keep in mind: A financial advisor can support your investment practices. They can help you figure out the right approach for your goals and bonds.

Overview of TradeStation vs. thinkorswim

TradeStation and thinkorswim prioritize traders who have already built investment experience. Although they are looking for ways to make themselves more user friendly for the average investor, they still have a primary audience.

TradeStation and thinkorswim show this through their desktop platforms. Both online brokerage’s desktop interfaces have multiple data and investing tools that can either help or hurt an investor’s experience. Newcomers may struggle with the learning curve both services pose. However, thinkorswim may be the kinder of the two. It offers simulated trading (paper trading) that can help beginners adjust. And although it does not have the same range of investment options as TradeStation, it still offers foreign exchange which the other doesn’t.

TradeStation vs. thinkorswim: Fees

TradeStation and thinkorswim are like many online brokers these days in terms of their stock ETF costs. Both have dropped the fees brokerages used to include and now offer them at zero-commission. After that, the two have somewhat comparable pricing, with some select fees that apply to one or the other.

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TradeStation has two price models thanks to the account types it offers: TradeStation Go (TS GO) and TradeStation Select (TS SELECT). Both charge $0 to trade equities and ETFs, like thinkorswim, but vary when it comes to futures, options, minimum balances and other certain fees. TS GO is targeted at retail investors and comes with slightly leaner pricing than its counterpart. Options are $0.50 per contract, and futures are $0.85 per contract. In contrast, TS SELECT charges $0.60 per options contract and $1.50 for futures per contract. Both accounts have the same pricing for futures options at $1.50. TS SELECT has a $2,000 account minimum but isn’t subject to the same surcharges TS GO is to use TradeStation’s desktop platform.

If you use the TradeStation desktop interface on the TS GO plan, you can expect to pay a $10 fee for each equity and option trade. There is also a $1.40 surcharge for futures trades per contract. The desktop version has all of TradeStation’s investment tools. So costs can run up for individuals on the TS GO plan.

For its part, thinkorswim only has one price model with the same zero-commission stock and ETF rule. Options cost $0.65 per contract, while futures can cost up to $5 per trade. Unlike TradeStation, there is no account fee. TradeStation users may be subject to an annual $50 inactivity fee, although this can be avoided if you maintain the minimum activity. It’s important to note that thinkorswim has foreign currency and exchange, or forex, whereas TradeStation does not; thinkorswim bases its forex trades on the bid/ask spread between countries, and foreign stock trading comes with a $6.95 trading fee.

Their highest margin rates are comparable. TradeStation’s vary between 3.50% and 9.50%; the more you leverage, the lower the interest rate. By contrast, thinkorswim’s range from 7.50% to 9.50%. Lower rates are offered after $500k, though you have to may a call to learn them.

TradeStation vs. thinkorswim: Services & Features

TradeStation lets investors trade in most mainstream financial products, like equities, exchange-traded funds (ETFs), options, futures and mutual funds. In addition to these typical offers, you can also choose to invest in futures, cryptocurrency and initial public offerings (IPOs). Thinkorswim also offers the same standard range of financial products but also foreign exchange. It does not currently support cryptocurrency trading, though.

When it comes to accessing these services, you have the same three options for TradeStation and thinkorswim: desktop, web and mobile. Both platforms are similar in terms of their desktop versions. It is the most complex interface out of the three, with the greatest range of customizations and data options.

TradeStation has multiple platforms, and the one you use depends on the type of trading you do. There is FuturesPluse for options and futures, as well as TSCrypto for trading cryptocurrency. In terms of trading, the desktop version offers tools such as Matrix, which is described as the “Swiss Army Knife” of trading tools. It combines an order-tracking system, a market depth window and an order-entry tool into one.

Similarly, thinkorswim supports sophisticated trading tools; however, it also enables fundamental analysis, which many long-term investors rely on. Fundamental analysis entails widgets for news, analysis and Level 2 data to name some. There is also the crucial difference that thinkorswim offers forex where TradeStation does not.

Although both platforms still have some experiential gap between their interfaces and new investors, thinkorswim supports paper trading, which helps actively bridge the gap, letting users set up a simulated account inside the platform and trading with fak