Cobra Trading

• Variety of Trading Platforms
• Low Margin Rates
• Market access
• Flexible Account options
• Helpful Client support

Variety of Trading Platforms

Cobra Trading offer a variety of trading platform options to meet the demands of today's traders. These platforms offer streaming quotes, charts, and other tools that seasoned investors find useful. Advanced traders can further benefit from the brokerage firm's desktop trading solutions, which provide real-time news, data, and quotes.

Cobra Trading offers the following trading platform options:

• Cobra TraderPro — powerful, low-cost trading with customizable options. This platform offers advanced charting, hotkey integration, alerts, and a stock locate window, among other helpful features.
• Sterling Trader Pro — a leading direct-access trading platform for trading equities and options. This platform is fully customizable.
• DAS Trader Pro — offers advanced order types, basket trading, charting, and multi-account management. This platform combines advanced analytics with market data, supporting real-time streaming and a customizable user interface.
• RealTick® EMS/ RealTick Express — a premier, downloadable, direct-access software. This platform delivers real-time data and advanced tools. The RealTick Express platform is a less costly solution for those who may not need all features included in the pro platform.

Fees vary by platform, but it is beneficial for traders to have multiple options to choose from, allowing them to find the platform that best fits their needs and trading level of expertise.

Low Margin Rates

Cobra Trading seeks to keep margin rates low to help traders hold positions overnight, keep costs in line, and help you keep more of your earned money. 

Cobra Trading charges a 5.25 percent margin rate on balances of $1 or $1,000,000. In comparison to other online stock trading companies, this rate is significantly low. It is important to note that if your margin balance exceeds $1,000,000 you will need to contact Cobra Trading for special margin pricing.

Market Access

Cobra Trading's direct market access means it eliminates the middleman between investors and the market makers. While other brokerage firms operate as retail brokers by being the middleman who facilitates investments, Cobra Trading links investors directly to the market. This results in cheaper trading costs for high-volume traders. Investors can also expect faster trade executions with this direct access. Since every second counts when dealing with the market, faster executions can mean quick and accurate response times to indicators in the market.

Flexible Account Options

For investors with an account balance greater than $30,000, the brokerage firm offers the ability to set up a margin account. This means investors can put down a certain percentage of the value of securities and then borrow money from the brokerage firm to cover the rest.

Helpful Client Support

Investors who choose to invest with Cobra Trading can also expect prompt and effective customer service with the company. It strives to be a leader in customer service and this was quite evident when we entered into a live chat with one of the representatives. Whether investors get in touch by phone, email, or live chat, they can always expect to speak with a passionate, knowledgeable, and thorough representative. Each team member is equipped to handle general and industry-specific inquiries, which gives the company a competitive advantage over other brokerage firms.

• High Software Fees
• No Foreign Stocks
• Mutual Funds
• Investment Limitations

High Software Fees

While Cobra Trading offers good commission plans on their platforms, investors need to consider the brokerage firm's extra fees for trading, which could drastically bring up the costs of investing in trades. For example, investors need to apply software fees and data accessing fees to their overall charges. While investors can get rebates on costly software fees, investors should keep in mind that this is all dependent on how much they invest into the market.

The following fees are charged for use of Cobra Trading trading platforms:

• Cobra TraderPro — $100 (waived if you trade 200,000 shares per month)
• DAS Trader Pro — $125 (waived if you trade 250,000 shares per month)
• Sterling Trader Pro — $200/$230 (waived if you trade 300,000 shares per month)
• RealTick Express — $200 (waived if you trade 300,000 shares per month)
• RealTick PRO — $350 (waived if you trade 500,000 shares per month)

No Foreign Stocks

If you would like to diversify your portfolio with foreign stocks, you will need to look into other online stock trading options because Cobra Trading doesn't offer foreign stock options.

Mutual Funds

The brokerage firm's mutual funds encompass a wide range of investment choices, however, investors need to consider the different fees associated with each fund. When applicable, Cobra Trading will charge $25 for certain transactions with mutual funds, which is a very high fee when compared to similar mutual funds at other brokerage firms. Similarly, options trades can also run more expensive with Cobra Trading when compared with its other competitors.

Investment Limitations

Since the brokerage firm caters to professional, high frequency traders, beginners or even intermediate investors should look elsewhere to satisfy their investment needs. The company's website offers no educational materials for investors and in addition to this, the firm's website is not user friendly. This detail confuses and frustrates visitors. Advanced traders who take advantage of the firm's desktop trading solutions should also realize the costs associated with this tool. It can be quite expensive and will require a large network bandwidth to use and maintain. For the 21st century investor with little time to trade, the brokerage firm's lack of apps means investments have to be made on a computer or via a phone call. This lack of mobile trading can debilitate the brokerage firm as it's competing for clients in an industry where newer and faster approaches to investing are coveted.