David Waring

In our last lesson we finished up the first module of our logistics of stock trading course, with a look at what an ECN is. In today's lesson we are going to start a new module on how to place stock trades, by setting up our stock trading platform.

For the purposes of this course, I have chosen to work with the ThinkorSwim platform. From what I have seen they are the firm with the best reputation in the market and I especially like the fact that they offer the ability to paper trade on their platform before going live, which is something that many firms do not offer.

So lets start by going to www.thinkorswim.com and registering for a free demo account. I have included a link below this video which will take you to the registration page where you can register for your free demo. Once you are at the registration page fill in the information with the red Astrix beside them and then click the register button.

Once you have done this you will be taken to a second registration page, where if you would like to sign up for a live account you can do so. If you prefer to check out the trading platform before opening a live account then you need to check your email and activate the registration process you just completed. Your information will be saved by the system so if you want to try the software out and then finish the account opening process at a later time you can.

To download the software, click on the ThinkorSwim logo in the upper right hand corner of the page which will take you to the homepage of the site. Once there goto the software tab and then select think desktop from the dropdown menu. This will take you to a page where you can click to download the software, and then click install to install the software. Once you have done this you want to save the file to your desktop, and then follow the instructions for downloading the software.

Once you have installed the software goto start, programs, and locate the thinkorswim group in your program files to launch the platform. Enter your username and password so you can login to the trading station. Once you have done this the platform will appear and you are ready to start placing some trades on 20 minute delayed quotes with 100,000 in virtual cash.

That's our lesson for today. In our next lesson we will look at how to pull up quotes for the stocks you want to trade so I hope to see you in that lesson. As always if there are any questions or comments please feel free to leave them in the comments section below, and good luck with your trading!

__________________
My Free Courses: Forex Course - Stock Course - Futures Course - Basics of Trading - Subprime Crisis - Prorealtime Charts

Disclaimer: Trading is risky and can result in substantial financial loss. As always my posts are simply one traders opinion and should not be taken as trading advice. I am not a financial adviser so everyone please do their own analysis and take responsibility for their own trades.

ZickZack

Hi David,

first of all I want to tell that I love your Webpage. For Newbies in trading it is a gem, packed with all the well structured information that you provide.

My question is: How many trades am I allowed to make on the thinkorswim platform in papermoney mode ???

in regards

ZickZack

David Waring

Hi Zickzack,

Glad to hear from you and thanks for the compliment I am glad you like the site.

As far as I know there is no trading limit on the ThinkorSwim papertrading platform. I have probably placed about 100 trades on mine which I have had for at least a couple of months and no problems so far.

Best Regards,
Dave

__________________
My Free Courses: Forex Course - Stock Course - Futures Course - Basics of Trading - Subprime Crisis - Prorealtime Charts

Disclaimer: Trading is risky and can result in substantial financial loss. As always my posts are simply one traders opinion and should not be taken as trading advice. I am not a financial adviser so everyone please do their own analysis and take responsibility for their own trades.

ZickZack

Hi David,

thank you for your quick answer...I just talked to the support and my mistake was that I set my account under 25k...so now everything is back to normal...!

I wish you and nice day and keep up your great work...in my opinion your page is by far the best on the net...

ZickZack

David Waring

Hey ZickZack,

Glad to hear everything worked out and welcome to the community.

Best Regards,
Dave

__________________
My Free Courses: Forex Course - Stock Course - Futures Course - Basics of Trading - Subprime Crisis - Prorealtime Charts

Disclaimer: Trading is risky and can result in substantial financial loss. As always my posts are simply one traders opinion and should not be taken as trading advice. I am not a financial adviser so everyone please do their own analysis and take responsibility for their own trades.

sphereless

Hey Dave,

I'm interested in paper trading with the Think or swim platform... Are the quotes delayed? Does that mean it does not give you the same execution a live account would give? Are there paper accounts out there that do?

I'm not sure if I understand what a delayed quote is? Sorry for all the basic queries?

Thanks again for the site,


Russ

Tekmnd

Hi Russ

A delayed quote means it is delayedf 20 min. In other words, you are looking at what the price was 20 minutes earlier.
I am pretty sure Think or Swim has live quotes, but if not, you can look at live quotes on yahoo while you paper trade Think & Swim (your virtual trade will get filled with real time quotes even if the quotes you look at are delayed).

Cheers
Tek

Charlie G.

Hi,

You can get access to live quotes at TOS using their Paper Money platform, and then the paper trades are made using real time prices.

However, to get it, you have to deposit $3,500 in your real trading account. They don't have any maintenance requirements after the initial deposit, so you could take the money out later.

I think the system is a great way to learn to trade stocks. The one thing mechanically that can be unrealistic are stocks with wide spreads that tend to have low volume. Paper Money executes trades between the ask and bid price. So lets say the stock has a bid and ask that's currently between $10 and $10.50 for whatever reason, and the last sale was at at $10.50 though. You could put an order in at $10.25 and have it go through. Then a second later, the bid gets tighter and the stock sells at $10.60 with a bid at $10.50. The stock jumped .30 cents in price for you which is unrealistic and just a bug in the platform. If you trade high volume stocks, its not a problem.

David Waring

Hey Charlie,

Thanks for sharing that I was not aware of it.

Best Regards,
Dave

__________________
My Free Courses: Forex Course - Stock Course - Futures Course - Basics of Trading - Subprime Crisis - Prorealtime Charts

Disclaimer: Trading is risky and can result in substantial financial loss. As always my posts are simply one traders opinion and should not be taken as trading advice. I am not a financial adviser so everyone please do their own analysis and take responsibility for their own trades.

Unregistered

Dude I tell you.. Your site is the best.....

Hats off to you guys.... just awesome