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Is YOUR Broker Regulated? Find out hereHere is a list of eight of the main financial regulatory agencies that are backed with strict regulatory enforcement in other countries… You’ll need to make sure the broker you choose is approved by one of the below. South Africa (FSCA) - The Financial Sector Conduct Authority USA (SEC) – Securities And Exchange Commission Eurozone (MiFID) – Markets In Financial Instruments Directive UK (FCA) – Financial Conduct Authority Australia (ASIC) – Australian Securities and Investments Commission India (SEBI) – Securities and Exchange Board of India Japan (JSDA) – Japan Securities Dealers Association Switzerland (FINMA) – Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority Am I missing any? Let me know in the comments :) Trade well, live free. Timon MATI Trader Financial trader since 2003
JSE:J200Education
by Timonrosso
How to Choose the Right Broker -10 pointsHere’s a list you may follow to help with your decision. My top 10 list to choose the best broker 1. Only choose reputable brokers that are regulated and recognised by the main financial regulatory bodies. (See answer to question two for the list of financial regulated authorities). 2. Find a broker who offer a list of trading instruments that you prefer i.e. shares, CFDs, Spread trading or futures. 3. Make sure their cost fees are low and their withdrawing and depositing structure takes place within three working days. 4. Make sure they are insured and deal with the top banks in the world and don’t run their own finance firm where they can take your money and run. 5. Go onto Google or ‘Hello Peter’ and read as many reviews from REAL people to see their experiences. 6. Browse through their website and read through everything before you decide whether they are for you or not. 7. Avoid any broker who promises any too-good-to-be true returns or are very marketing orientated – most times these are scams… 8. Analyse their portfolio growth they’ve achieved for their clients over the last five years. This will help you see their consistency or even the validity of what they have to offer. 9. Choose a broker who meets your trading needs i.e. trading platform, available markets, trading indicators, economic calendars and even copy-trading plug-ins. 10. Make sure the broker you choose is able to help in terms of customer service needs, trading education, live videos and even trading events for their clients. If you found this useful, let me know in the comments. Trade well, live free. Timon MATI Trader Financial Trader since 2003
JSE:J200Education
by Timonrosso
Choose your Ideal Broker with a 10 Step checklistAre you looking for the right broker in 2023 and beyond but unsure what to look for? With the high competition nowadays, each broker offers different features, instruments and advantages. That’s why choosing one not an easy task for a beginner or even an experienced trader. You’ll need to drill down exactly what suits your trading style, personality and risk profile. I say this because, in the last two decades, I’ve been through a fair share of brokers. So, I know how difficult this decision can be and how it can determine whether you make money or not as a trader. In this article, I’ll share with you an easy-to-follow checklist which you can use to help you choose the right online broker in 2020 and beyond. What is a broker or dealer? A broker is a company or institution that gives a trader access to a live trading account and trading platform which enables them to buy, sell and monitor different instruments and assets. Here’s my checklist to find your ideal broker… Checklist item #1: Make sure the broker or dealer is regulated! This is a must… Whenever you sign up with a broker, make sure they are authorised, regulated and recognised by leading regulation authorities. You will most likely find this stated on the company’s website, in the ‘About Us’ or in their ‘Disclaimer’, along with their license number they hold with that regulator. Countries with dedicated financial regulatory agencies include: South Africa (FSB) – Financial Services Board. USA (SEC) – Securities And Exchange Commission (FINRA) – Financial Industry Regulatory Authority Eurozone (MiFID) – Markets In Financial Instruments Directive UK (FCA) – Financial Conduct Authority Australia (ASIC) – Australian Securities and Investments Commission India (SEBI) – Securities and Exchange Board of India Japan (JSDA) – Japan Securities Dealers Association Switzerland (FINMA) – Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority When you sign up with a regulated broker, you’ll at least have the security and assurance that they have met certain standards approved by the regulatory body, such as: Having the right capital to protect the clients’ funds Ensure the firm won’t go bust Confirm they have met certain requirements from the financial service provider Checklist item #2: Check their reviews and testimonials Before you make any decisions, you’ll need to see what others have said and are saying about the broker or the dealer company. You can do this by searching on Google, ‘Hello Peter’, trading forums or go onto their social media pages to read what other unbiased REAL clients have written about them when it comes to reviews, testimonials and ratings. Checklist item #3: Broker minimum requirements There are two minimums to take into account: Minimum balance and minimum deposit per trade. Most brokers require you to start with a certain minimum balance to set up your trading account. Nowadays, with the high competition, you should easily be able to find brokers or dealers who require no more than R1,000 up to R5,000 to open a trading account. If they require any more to open your trading account, just know that there are other brokers out their where you can start with less. As with the minimum deposit to take a trade, you can easily find reputable brokers where the minimum is under R200 per trade. Checklist item #4: Availability: What they can offer you You should have a good idea on what you’d like to trade. This is why before you sign up with the broker, you’ll need to see the availability and range of trading instruments the company has to offer. What assets do you want to trade? Shares, CFDs, Options, Futures, Spread Betting etc… What markets do you want to trade? Stocks, currencies, commodities, indices, bonds, ETFs or crypto-currencies… Where do you want to trade? Via phone, mobile or computer. What times would you like to trade? Morning, noon or night? What gearing and leverage would you like to trade? Whether you’re a Forex trader or a stock trader you’ll need to find out what gearing the broker has to offer. Such as 5:1 – 20:1 (for stocks) and 50:1 up to 200:1 (for Forex). E.g. With gearing (or leverage) of 50:1 this means if you deposit R1,000 into a trade you can hold a position exposed and valued up to R50,000. REMEMBER: the higher the leverage offered, the higher the reward but also the potential risk. Do they offer a demo account or a trial period? You should never rush into trading with real money, before getting to know your broker and your trading platform. That’s why you should ask your broker if they have a demo trading platform or account that you can use to test out what they have to offer with your strategies Checklist item #5: Do they offer trading education and training? A good and genuine broker should want you to be successful as a trader. And to do this, they should offer you a whole range of free education, training sources and tools such as: Training guides Glossary Trading videos, podcasts, forums Written articles Step-by-step trading tutorials Support staff Opinion-based resources Live trading events and webinars Trading calculators, tools and calendars Checklist item #6: The trading platform itself Majority of your analyses, preparation and the execution of trades are going to take place on the trading platform itself. This is why you’ll need to try it out, test it and learn how to use it, to see if it will suit your trading. Here is a list of items to watch out for with your trading platform: Item #1: Chart types: E.g. Line chart and candle sticks Item #2: Time frame options of: E.g. 1 hour, 4 hour, daily, weekly & monthly Item #3: Trading indicators and oscillators: E.g. RSI, Stochastics, MACD, OBV, ADX, Bollinger Bands etc… Item #4: Real time charts: E.g. Not having to refresh your screen every 15 minutes or download anything unnecessarily. Item #5: Live streaming data: E.g. News feed, live speeches & announcements, and SENS (Stock Exchange News Service). Item #6: Customized watch lists: Make sure there is a functionality to create, modify and monitor a watchlist with the markets you’ll be trading. Item #7: Trading order variety: E.g. Market, buy, sell, limit, stops, trailing stop loss and guaranteed stop losses Item #8: Trading journal: E.g. Portfolio profit & loss summary of open, closed and historical trades. Item #9: Trading order box: Where you’ll place your entry, stop loss, take profit, margin requirements, order quantity, gain potential, risk potential and risk to reward. Item #10: Reliability: When you’re testing the trading platform, this is where you can ensure it’s reliable in a way that: It runs smoothly It saves your layout, charts and profile It doesn’t crash The speed is good The features all work as they should The web-based (java) or desktop application works great The mobile app is easy-to-use and handle NOTE: TradingView connects a amazing and reliable brokers. Checklist item #7: Customer support It’s important to find out where you can contact your broker, in case you need help due to some technical or trading reason. Which mediums can you contact them through? • Phone • Email • Online live chat • WhatsApp • Skype • Forums Also when you give the representative a call, make sure they sound knowledgeable and confident in what they tell you. Think about how they respond to your questions, how quickly do they solve your queries, are they friendly and approachable? The contact support will also confirm their quality, efficiency, reliability and credibility for what the company already portrays and offers. Checklist item #8: Costs and fees You will never be able to avoid costs and fees completely, but you can minimize them by choosing the right broker. You’ll need to do a bit of research to compare the costs of buying, selling and holding trades. Make sure you look at the following: Spreads (Fixed or variable) Note: The spreads should be low for high volume traded markets Commissions (When you enter and when you exit) Margin interest Service charges Minimum charge per trade e.g. R100 Checklist item #9: Ease of deposits and withdrawals This is an important one… Each broker or dealer has their own measures and policies when it comes to their clients depositing into their trading accounts or withdrawing back into their bank accounts. Ask your broker how you can make a deposit whether it be via: EFT Credit Card PayPal Wire transfer Then confirm with your broker to send you their policies and costs on how you can withdraw your money and how long it will take whether it be: Via email to ask for a withdraw which will take under 3 trading days. Via the trading platform where you can withdraw through an authentication process. Via the broker who can only proceed with a withdrawal on the phone which will take three working days. Note: A withdrawal and deposit with a reputable and regulated broker should NEVER take more than three working days or warning bells should ring. Checklist item #10: Safety, security and legitimacy There are a few ways to check if the broker is safe and secure including: Their website starts with HTTPS: and not HTTP: They are insured and deal with top banks around the world. They have secured encryption processes. They have proven to show growth for their clients over the last five years. They have won broker awards or are listed in the top brokers in the country you’re looking at. Final Words You now have an idea on how to find the most ideal broker for you. Take your time to do the research and go through each line item one by one. Never rush into choosing a broker as this can be a significant decision for your financial future. If you enjoyed this piece then follow more daily tips and lessons on TradingView. I've been in the markets since 2003 and happy to share what I've learnt along the way. Trade well, live free. Timon MATI Trader PS: Connect with my few socials below.
JSE:J200Education
by Timonrosso
XP. Brazilian brokerage leader.XP Inc. is a Brazilian brokerage and dealer company. It is one of the seven largest companies in the country with a capitalization of $16.8B. It is the leading low-cost financial services company in Brazil. XP Inc. gives clients access to a wide range of financial products, including fixed income securities, mutual funds and hedge funds, pension plans and life insurance, generates a large amount of media content and develops technology solutions to support its cloud and mobile applications. The Brazilian financial market is not very developed, most of it is made up of conservative banks with inefficient financial instruments. In such circumstances, the activities of XP Inc. can be called revolutionary on a national scale. At first glance, XP Inc. is at the peak of the current investment promotion trend. ➡️ The entire movement since March 2020 visually looks like an impulse and a correction to it. The structure of the initial growth is ambiguous, and the corrective movement in wave 2 (or B) is technically decomposed into a plane. In December 2021, the decline in wave {c} reached the level of $27.5 , stopping at it with a slight flat. At the start of 2022, we saw a false breakout of this level and a return to the top with the update of the last peak (iv)of{c} and the potential for the end of the downtrend. It is worth noting that in the area of the indicated level of $27.5 there are: 1️⃣ Corrective Fibo level 0.5 of wave 1. 2️⃣ Projection Fibo level 1.618 for wave {c}of2. 3️⃣ Strong volume zone $22-28 within the ascending wave 1. 4️⃣ The lower border of the descending pitchfork. 📌 Growth in January is like a expanding diagonal. I see a good opportunity to buy on a rollback to the area of $27-$29 . 📈 If this movement is an ABC zigzag, as a minimum target for further growth, I note the maximum level of the stock at $52 - $53 , which the price has already touched three times over the past years. If this is a start of a new impulse and we have leading waves 1-2 in front of us, then the adequate growth potential in wave 3 is at $90 , but it may turn out to be noticeably higher - the following projection levels: $120 , $142 and $190 . ➖ In theory, wave {c} may become more complicated or my initial counting may not be confirmed, then the fall will continue. Cancellation of the current scenario when the price goes below $25.5 .
NASDAQ:XPLong
by Dmitrii_Kachalov
11
Trading Idea - #Robloxshort-term BUY: Entry 67.90 /Target: 73.80 / Stop: 63.20 mid-term SELL: Entry 73.84 /Target: 59.40 / Stop: 87.38 Roblox offers a platform powered by user-generated content that is inspired by games, entertainment, social media, and even toys. All users of the Roblox platform have identities in the form of avatars that enable them to interact and express themselves as whoever or whatever they want to be. The company will publish its results for Q1 2021 on May 10, 2021. In the latest earnings releases, the company’s results were below estimates.
NYSE:RBLX
by Traderherz-Analytics
1
Best Brokerage Account 2021Let’s talk about the best brokerage account, and in order to do this, I want to compare five different brokers for you. I’ll be comparing tastyworks, the current broker that I’m currently trading with, Robinhood because many traders are using it, TD Ameritrade because it’s wildly popular, Interactive Brokers because it’s great for international traders, and we will talk about a new broker that I’ve been using for the past couple of months, so I have an account with them. I want to talk about this and compare them to the others and tell you why I really like this new broker and why I’m in the process of switching over all my accounts. The first thing to keep in mind when you’re comparing different brokers, you have to pick criteria that fit your needs. These are my criteria and they might be great for you, or your criteria may be different. So what I’m looking for when finding the best broker. My Criteria For Selecting A Broker So the first thing that I would like to know is how much do I have to pay in commissions per month? I use a certain baseline for this. With my current broker, tastyworks, I looked back over the past three months and I wanted to see how much I spent. From 1/1 through 3/31 I made 150 trades and traded 1,665 contracts. So I use this as my baseline in order to compare these different brokers. I took to see what if I make 150 trades, or 50 trades per month and 500 contracts that I’m trading per month. Again, for you, it might be different, but we need to have somehow a baseline, especially when we are comparing the commissions per month that I’m spending right now, that I would be spending on Robinhood, TD Ameritrade, interactive brokers, and this new broker that I’m trading with. Now, every single broker has some other fees, and you need to see which of these fees are important to you. Here are the ones that are important to me. I want to know if there any wire fees and if so, how much are they? Also, are there any assignment fees? Assignment fees are important to me because I’m trading The Wheel Strategy, and part of this strategy is getting assigned shares, so I want to know how much this will be. Information about their customer support is also important to me. What happens if I need help and I need to call or e-mail them? Do they have an online chat feature? So this is important for me. What about the platform? Every single broker offers a platform for you, so which one best fits your needs? This is where we get a little bit more technical because I want to talk about levels three and four. What does this mean? Well, it means that, especially when you are selling options which you do with The Wheel Strategy, you need certain option trading permissions, so you want to know how easily can you get level three and four if this is important to you. Now, last but not least, I love having live data. I don’t know about you, but I want to make sure that live data available with these brokerages. I also want to know how much it costs if anything. So let’s get started and let’s talk about the first broker here, tastyworks. tastyworks I am currently using tastyworks, and I know exactly how much money I spent on tastyworks. On this particular account, I spent $550 dollars in commissions. For the baseline of 50 trades and 500 contracts per month, I spent around $180 in commissions. Now for tastyworks, how much are wire fees? When I wire money out, which is once a month, it costs me $25. What about the assignment fees? The assignment fees for tastyworks are $5. I want to explain to you exactly how they are charging. So with tastyworks, they charge $1 per contract and they do have a $10 maximum. So you’re never paying more than $10. Even if you’re trading 50 contracts, you will only pay $10. They also have no closing fees and this applies to options trading. For stock trading, these days, trading stocks is free pretty much everywhere. So we want to worry about options here because that’s what I’m mainly trading. What about customer support? I must say their support is good. The experiences that I have had thus far when I contact them by chat are very quick. When contacting them through chat, they usually only have me on hold for three to ten minutes. Now, what I do not like about tastyworks? You cannot call them, and sometimes I would rather speak with someone on the phone, so this is why I’m not labeling it “very good,” I’m just labeling it as “good” because you can’t call them. As for their platform, I think it is pretty good. However, I’m just using a fraction of the platform, so for me, the most important function is actually placing trades. I’m not using any of the complicated curves that you can have and all of the analysis tools, but again, if this is important to you, then you need to make sure that this platform meets all of your needs. For me, it does what I need it to do, which is entering trades. Now level three and four is actually something that is quite easy to obtain with tastyworks. So no problems there, and live data is actually free. Robinhood As for Robinhood, how much would you pay in commissions per month? Well, Robinhood has always advertised you pay zero commissions, and that is true. For options trading, you also pay zero dollars, which is actually pretty cool. Wire fees are a whopping zero dollars with assignment fees being zero dollars. So thus far Robinhood is really good in terms of commissions, right? Well, what about customer support? Now, full disclosure, I do not have an account with Robinhood, so I’ve never contacted them, but based on what I have heard, it is pretty bad. What about based on what I’ve seen? I don’t know if you’ve been following the news, but back when we had the GME craziness, Robinhood restricted trading for several days. I don’t think that was fair. I don’t think that they should have done that, but they did. This makes it seem to me they don’t have their customers in mind. Now, again, full disclosure, I don’t have an account with them and never contacted them. I’ve just heard that customer support is pretty bad. What about the platform? I don’t know first hand, but I’ve heard it’s good. Again, this is where I go from hearsay because I don’t have an account with Robinhood, never had one, & don’t want one. In terms of levels three and four, I heard from traders who have an account with them say it is fairly difficult to obtain levels three and four. If you’re trading The Wheel Strategy, this is super important. As for their live data, it’s free. TD Ameritrade Now on to TD Ameritrade. How much would you spend with TD Ameritrade based on my baseline? You would pay 65 cents per the contract that you trade. So if you’re trading like me, 500 contracts per month, times 65 cents, that comes to $325. What about the wire fee? The wire fees here are also $25, the same as with tastyworks, but assignment fees are zero. Now, what about customer support? Customer support used to be good. Right now I would say it is decent. There was a time when you could call them they would pick right up. These days you are probably on hold for anywhere between 15 minutes and 2 hours because they got bought by Charles Schwab. There seems to be a lot of consolidation going on and because of this, and because of this, it seems that customer support is suffering. What about the platform? ThinkOrSwim is probably one of the most powerful trading platforms out there, and it is fairly complex. For me, I just need to enter simple orders such as buy and sell orders. So for me personally, it is too complex. It took me a long time to learn it. For those of you who have ThinkOrSwim, you either love it or you hate it. Either way, it is so complex, so you probably had to spend hours and hours learning it. Levels three and four are fairly simple to acquire, and also live data here is free. Interactive Brokers Now with Interactive Brokers, I personally do have three accounts. I’ve been using them since 1999. They’re a great choice for international traders. However, Interactive Brokers charges 65 cents per contract. So very similar here to TD Ameritrade. If I would trade on Interactive Brokers I would actually spend $325. The wire fee here is a little bit cheaper, $10. The assignment fees, if you get assigned, are zero. Now their customer support, based on my experience is pretty bad. I’ve tried contacting them by chat, by phone, by email, and if you’re trying to contact them by chat, you will most likely be on hold for at least 20 minutes. If you try to contact them by phone it is not unusual to wait 30 to 60 minutes until you get connected. Their platform here is actually simple to use, but I find it’s pretty clunky. So just if you want my opinion and again, this is just my opinion. You on the other hand might find this platform blazing fast and think it’s the best trading platform there is. Now, in terms of levels three and four, yes, it is fairly easy to obtain, but they charge you $14.50 for live data, so just keep this in mind. This is a monthly fee so you just need to know what you need. So with the new broker, and I’ll tell you in a moment who that is, but when I saw all this mess going on in February where several brokers restricted trading, I said, “you know what, this is not fair.” When I heard from some of you say, “My broker suddenly raised the margin requirements and I didn’t have a margin problem before and now I have a margin call,” or that you’re on hold forever before you get any customer support, I set out to find a great broker, and here is the new broker that I’m currently using. Tradier The new broker that I’m using is Tradier. I will move all of my accounts over to them because of what they’re offering. The commission per month, it’s a $10 flat fee. $10 no matter how many options you trade. This is a special rate for those of you reading these articles, and following me on YouTube. So I think it is an absolutely cool model because it is a flat fee no matter how many contracts you trade. Now, this, of course, is great if you are trading a lot of contracts like me. You have seen it, 500 contracts per month, with 150 trades, so I’m a very, very active trader. I think it is absolutely cool that instead of paying $180 per month, all I’m paying right now is a $10 flat fee. That is pretty cool. Now the wire fees are a little bit more expensive. The wire fees are $35, but again, I’m using it once a month. So, therefore, if I’m adding this up, all right, and I say, well, that is $205 per month versus $45 a month, and for me, that adds up. Right. It’s only a $10 difference from tastyworks, and I’m not wiring money in and out like crazy. I’m just wiring it out once a month and that is okay. So the assignment fee here is a little bit higher, at $9 as of right now. So over the past three months, I had 3 wires and I had 8 assignments. This is for the year. This means that per month I have 1 wire and approximately 3 assignments. So as you can see, this is why the assignment costs here for me are not that important. Again, these are my numbers, your numbers might be completely different, and that is fine. This is where the cool thing is you have probably your brokerage account statement, so you can take a look at that, and then you know exactly how much you’re paying right now. So the customer support, I must say based on my experience, over the past two months that I’ve been using them, is awesome. What do I mean by awesome? By awesome I mean that I can pick up the phone right now. I can call them, and within two to three rings, somebody picks up. The customer support team is in North Carolina, so I’m not going overseas, they are here in the United States. They have been super responsive by email and by phone. I don’t even know if they offer a chat on the website because I was just so happy that I can finally talk to somebody. Again, I’m coming from tastyworks, and on tastyworks, I’ve never, ever been able to talk to somebody because their business model is that they’re all doing it by chat, so I love this. What about their platform? Their platform is simple, and in my opinion, it is super easy to learn. So you can learn this platform in literally 10 minutes because that’s what they do. They just say, hey, if you want to enter trades, which I want to do, it’s fine. They don’t have all of the bells and whistles that the other platforms have. So I would say it’s more comparable to Robinhood instead of a platform like TD Ameritrade because with Robinhood you just enter the trade and it is good. So it’s simple and easy, does the trick for me. Levels three and four are super easy to get. And live data is free. So this is what this new broker is all about. For our members, we have created in our private community a special discussion group, and in this discussion group, we are here to help you, support you, with this particular brokerage. Which again is called Tradier. So, for example, people have been asking if they open an account for business, an LLC for example? And the answer is yes. So you can ask us if you want to, of course, you can contact them. So this is what we have here. We have a Tradier discussion group. We do have tutorials for you such as videos on how to open an account, how to set up a paper trading account, and that reminds me, they offer paper trading. As you know, I highly recommend that you trade on a paper trading account first. There are also videos on how to fund your Tradier account, how to place a stock entry order for the PowerX Strategy, how to place options order for the PowerX Strategy, entering orders for The Wheel Strategy, how to check your positions. Summary OK. So, again, my promise is to show you the best broker and this is the best broker for my needs. Now, for your needs, it might be different, but I thought that I compare here that the top five brokers that most traders are using right now.
TVC:NDQEducation
by rockwelltrading