SpeedTrader
Is This Your Business?0.0
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LAST UPDATED: June 27th, 2019
Entrepreneur and trader Guy Gentile founded SpeedTrader in 1999. He created the brokerage firm to provide investors with direct access to the market, thereby offering advanced day traders the ability to have more control over their investments. The company is a division of Stock USA Execution Services, Inc. (Stock USA), which is an online brokerage firm based in New York. SpeedTrader offers competitive rates within the industry, especially when compared to some of the big name brokerage firms. The company is also hailed for its state-of-the-art trading platforms as it provided four for its investors to choose from. These platforms cater to the firm's clients' diverse needs.
Top Ranked Companies
The Good
- Trading platforms
- Educational resources
Trading Platforms
SpeedTrader offers investors four trading platforms to choose from. One is a mobile, web-based trading platform, which is as basic as platforms get. It allows investors to place online trades free of charge. The firm then offers ActiveWeb, which is a browser-based direct access trading platform. This platform takes the middleman out of the equation to help investors directly access and trade on the market. SpeedTrader PRO, the firm's main platform, is an advanced platform that offers several useful functions. It offers watchlists, option chains, and analytic reports to help facilitate the investment process. Investors using the platform also receive visual alerts that they can modify in order to alert them of possible trading opportunities. SpeedTrader PRO, unlike a lot of competitors' platforms, offers a training account, for free, to assist investors who are navigating SpeedTrader for the first time. This means that investors can virtually trade and test out the brokerage firm without losing any money. Lastly, on the platforms front, the firm offers an app, iSpeedTrader, which is available on iPhone and other iOS devices. Investors on the go can use this app to place trades and view how their investments are performing.Educational Resources
As far as customer and educational support go, SpeedTrader performs fairly well compared to its competitors. It offers great guidance for its traders in the form of video tutorials, FAQs, and a free widget to add to their professional or personal websites. The brokerage firm's customer service is pretty standard when compared to the support offered elsewhere. The brokerage firm offers assistance via live chat, telephone, and email during normal business hours.The Bad
- Platform limitations
- Fluid pricing
- Lack of research/data
Platform Limitations
While the firm provides great platforms that offer efficient and fast trading capabilities, they could be improved. They're not customizable and they lack some useful tools like calculators, certain reports on securities, and volatility information, to name a few. These platforms also tend to come at a price. For example, ActiveWeb is $75 per quarter and SpeedTrader PRO is $49 per month (but is free for investors who make $199 in commissions per month). Depending on the needs of the investor, these charges can seem pretty steep for platform features that other brokerage firms tend to offer for free.Fluid Pricing
When it comes to pricing and platforms, SpeedTrader is known for changing things up quite often. So, its information and its tools can quickly become outdated, which is unfair for its past investors who traded at fairly high commission rates and became accustomed to the provided platforms. Now, they'll need to adapt to the new changes and accept the fact that new clients are in a better position since they are trading at fairly reduced commission rates.Lack of Research/Data
While SpeedTrader provides great educational resources, some investors have complained about the lack of research tools available to research trades and they've also complained about the company's poor tax record keeping. Furthermore, customers aren't happy that the firm's app, iSpeedTrader, is only available on iOS devices, namely the iPhone and iPad. This ostracizes investors on the go who don't have an iOS device but may want a mobile application to place trades, track watch lists, and monitor investment positions.The Bottom Line
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