Sunday, August 9, 2020

Help selecting a new platform that has better features

I made a similar post in /r/investing, but it's probably more relevant here. If you recommend a platform and I make the switch to it, I'll Paypal/Venmo you $100 (or make a $100 donation to a reputable US-based charity of your choosing if you prefer not to send your email...bitcoin would probably work too if that's easy enough for me to set up). Scout's honor on whether I make the switch. (It may take a couple weeks for me to make a decision and potentially switch.)

I'm a part-time fundamental trader and primarily trade equities and options. I use e*Trade which is what I've always used because I fell into trading after being purely a long-term investor. There are a lot of limitations to e*Trade, and it's high time that I see if I can find a platform that's better for my style of trading. I'm wondering if anyone could recommend another broker that you've been pleased with that has some features that would be helpful for me. Basically, I'm looking for the ability to organize and track my positions more easily within the platform itself.

I primarily do my research outside of market hours and place orders to open positions that have one day to several month time horizons, so I don't need fancy real-time dashboards for playing super short-term movements (though it would be nice to see an order book when placing orders).

Below are the features that I'd like to have. I doubt any platform has all of these, but if one has several (and favorable fees), it'd help me a lot:

  • (Top Need) Allows for positions to be sorted into thematic folders and be able to see the current balance of each, and ideally the performance of each (but the balance is fine).
    • It'd be great if it allows a % of every position within a thematic folder to be sold with one bulk action, but this may be a stretch. (I park a lot of idle cash in newly IPO'ed SPACs, and if I need the cash for a large more active position, I have to manually sell a portion of each.)
      • It'd also be great if it's possible to set a sequence of events i.e. Sell X at market and buy Y at market.
  • Supports the input of custom note types for individual positions, as well as the convenient display of these notes (i.e. "Investment Thesis", "Anticipated Holding Period", "Number of Attached Warrants", etc) in columns alongside the statistics for the position. e*Trade allows notes, but it's not very visible.
  • Allows the set-up of some sort of warning message when going to sell a specific position (i.e. You asked me to remind you before selling: "Do not sell this unless it looks like Joe Biden is going to lose the election. Are you sure he's going to lose?")
  • Allows for both automated and custom reminders to be configured for individual positions (i.e. toggle on/off reminders for upcoming earnings call(s), product announcements, etc as well as custom reminders like "In 12 months, remind me to to assess whether Walmart+ is gaining traction. If not, sell half of this position."
  • Makes it easy to set both a stop-loss order and a limit sell order (so the position is sold if it crosses a lower / upper limit). There are positions that I'd only like to hold to a certain point. Currently, if I have a stop-loss order set for risk management as I do on several positions, I cannot also set a limit sell order to take profit at a certain level.
  • Allows for open orders to be programmed to cancel if certain criteria are met (i.e. I have a 60-day buy order in for call options on a certain stock that is under contract to be acquired for cash. If the stock price falls below a certain threshold, it almost certainly signals that the buyer somehow backed out. I would like to be able to have that options buy order automatically cancel if the stock falls below $X, or else someone would sell me the options and get free money before I have a chance to manually cancel.)

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