Lightspeed Trading Fees and Investments Offered (2010)
- Stocks and ETFs: $.00395 per share, plus/minus Market Center Fees
- OTCBB and Pink Sheets: $10 per order, plus/minus Market Center Fees
- Options: $0.50 per contract, no minimum/no order charges
- Futures: $0.50 per contract, no minimum/no order charges plus exchange fees
- Investment products: stocks, options, mutual funds, bonds, futures, ETFs
- Minimum to open account: $1000 for Web Trader, $10,000 otherwise
- All Lightspeed Trading fees
Lightspeed Trading needs to improve their account opening process. Users opening an IRA account
have to print PDF forms (and download a new version of Acrobat Reader if don't have it), fill
out the forms by hand, then mail them (there are no fax or email options). A non-IRA account is easy to open
by simply filling out all the forms on the website.
There are two platforms available for trading: Lightspeed Trader (min. $10K equity) and
Lightspeed Web Trader (min. $1K equity).
Customers can open the following types of accounts: Individual, Joint, Option, Futures,
Corporate, Partnership, Sub, LLC, Roth IRA and Traditional IRA.
Lightspeed.com Trading Platform Review
Lightspeed.com offers three trading platforms:
• Lightspeed Web Trader: browser-based trading and account management, with features like
Options Strategy Center, News, Calendars, Research, and more;
• Lightspeed Trader: direct market access trading system, fully customized, could trade
equities, options and futures from one platform;
• Lightspeed Gateway: algorithmic-based trading platform;
Lightspeed Trader is direct access software with completely customizable layouts,
featuring hot-key and point-and-click trading, though charting could use some improvement.
Lightspeed Web Trader is terribly designed and extremely buggy. Between the bugs and design issues it sometimes
takes 10 minutes to enter a simple order!
- Lowest commissions in the industry
- Forex trading, with spreads as low as 1-2 pips, with fractional pips for more precise quoting
- Direct access to ECN’s and exchanges
- Free practice account
- Online community
- $10,000 minimum to use Lightspeed Trader (but only $1,000 to use Lightspeed Web Trader)
- $35 annual IRA fee
- Account opening needs work
- Web Trader platform is full of bugs and it could take a lot of time to enter the order
- Extended hours trading is not available on the Web Trader platform
- Web Trader platform is badly designed
LightSpeed Trading Review Summary
Lightspeed Trading provides direct access to ECN’s and exchanges which is a must for active traders.
The company has few fees, and, more importantly, it offers extremely low trading commissions
-- just $.00395 per share, and any order of up to 100 shares will cost 40 cents or less
(orders with up to 500
shares are $2 or less). Options commission is $0.50 per contract with no order charges.
These are the best rates of ALL stock brokers!
LightSpeed's Web Trader platform design is unintuitive and could use a lot of improvement. But, more importantly,
the platform is full of bugs and it often makes trading a frustrating experience. The absence of extended hours
trading at Web Trader is disappointing too.
Their other platform, LightSpeed Trader, is much more stable and usually performs well. It could
get slow on high-volume days though.
If you are a beginner investor, this is probably not a broker for you -- try
one of our Best for Beginner Investor Brokerages.
LightSpeed Trading is primarily suited for very active traders who need cheap execution. If you don't trade on the
daily basis, check out our
Recommended Online Brokerage Houses.
Lightspeed Trading is a great brokerage for day-traders. It was rated Best For Frequent Traders by Barron's magazine
in 2010. If you are one of them, you HAVE to give it a shot!
Open an account with one of the two promotional offers below and see for yourself how you like it.
When you click on one of these links you could also request a 14-days no-obligation Lightspeed Trader trial.
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