| Thinkorswim minimum investment to open brokerage account | $2,000 |
| Thinkorswim minimum amount to open brokerage margin account | $2,000 in cash and/or securities |
| Thinkorswim minimum initial deposit to open ROTH IRA, Traditional IRA, Simple IRA, or SEP IRA | $0 |
| Thinkorswim minimum balance requirement for brokerage or IRA | none |
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ThinkorSwim Forex Overview
There are many trading platforms using equities, options, bonds, forex or even binary options that have many different pricing schedules.
The cost structure on TD Ameritrade’s platform for forex trading is very accommodating to a majority of traders.
TD Ameritrade’s bid/ask spread is closer than most and that does help on executions and costs since there are two different ways to "pay" for
the trade. One way is by the bid/ask spread and the other is based on a commission of $1 per trade. This makes it convenient depending on the trader
and their strategies.
Customer Service
Their customer service is helpful and resourceful on how their system is run and on placing trades. They do offer several ways to contact (phone, email,
live chat) them with a knowledgeable person on the other end responding. They won’t give you the magical trade but will help to explain certain trades
and help also in digesting new releases.
They also help in execution of trades and from experience, they do a thorough research as to why an issue and discrepancy of price and correct it
within a matter of a few minutes if they issue is brought to their attention. Typically, execution is not even an issue on the platform but if there
is some news or report that is released it does drive the market fast and they will correct the issue.
Education
They do offer a few ways to get educated on forex or any security for that matter. Within the website, there is always the news section and there is
an education section that does offer webinars and reading material that one can find very beneficial. They also do send out constant emails to let
traders know of any webinars or new platform updates and training for them. There is also a great amount of material that is available for those
that are using the Thinkorswim trading platform. One can look at different news articles and filter by the security or country.
But the most beneficial part about TD Ameritrade is that they seem to connect traders together by creating communities of trades. This does allow
traders to create groups or rooms that are dedicated to a certain specialty or area of trading. There is also trading feeds that allow traders to
follow other traders in their daily strategies.
Back-testing
The other convenient tool within the trading platform is the ability to go “OnDemand” with the trading platform. This is the basic test account that
every broker gives but also has all the tools and news that the live platform has. This allows a trader to back-test various dates all the way down
to a timeframe and use the traders’ strategies without using real money. As a trader, this is a very helpful tool and worth every penny to utilize
and test his or hers trading ideas. However, there is one down fall of this tool is that once there is a strategy and it is working, there is
no way of transferring that strategy or chart to the live trading platform. All work is lost and will have to be rebuilt.
Trading Platforms
TD Ameritrade does offer a wide variety of trading platforms for all the securities except for forex trading. It seems that they are more built
for equities, mutual funds and ETFs than anything as one can trade these securities through any of the platforms available. As far as forex
trading, they offer two different platforms. One of the desktop platforms is Thinkorswim trading platform, which is a desktop download, and
the other is the TD Ameritrade mobile platform. The Thinkorswim platform is a great platform so it should also be in the “good” things but
it does take some getting used to and does need a fast speed internet as there is a lot of information that is being sent. The downfall to
the Thinkorswim platform is that it is very strict on which computer systems it works with. For example, if a mobile trader that uses a table
other than Apple iPad would not be able to use Thinkorswim and possibly the mobile platform. This creates an issue for those traders that use a
Microsoft Surface or any other tablet that is not within the system requirements. The mobile platform is convenient but does seem to freeze quite
a bit which as a trader is trying to trade forex, that does not make for a good day of trading when it does freeze. It is available for Apple
applications and Google apps. There is currently not one available for Microsoft apps. So traders beware if you are looking to be mobile.
Conclusion
In conclusion, TD Ameritrade does offer a lot of different tools and abilities for a trader to use and become more successful. Instead of going
to various websites, they do give all these tools to a trader with an easy click of the mouse. And with all the complexities that go along with
forex trading, every little bit helps and creates a bigger trading community.
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