So this post will be one of the worst shameless plugs you will find on the web. Simply put, I believe without a doubt Tradingsim is the best online stock trading site and I’m going to tell you why.
Affordability
In today’s economy we all feel a bit squeezed. As I look around the web I see a number of trading sites and platforms that offer really cool features and free offers; however, the one thing they all have in common is overpriced monthly platform fees and data fees. On average the data fees alone will run anywhere from $35 – $49 dollars per month. In addition you will have to pay some sort of hefty platform fee which will range from $80 to well north of a $100 per month. When you add it all up you will end up spending close to $1000 per year just to practice trading. If you don’t believe me check out ninjatrader.
We at Tradingsim provide you access to real historical tick data for over 11,000+ symbols and access to our platform for less than $21 dollars per month. Why would we do this? Simply put, we know how hard it is to make money in the market and we want to provide the most affordable means for you to master your craft. Odds are, before you end up at a site like ours, you have spent hundreds if not thousands on a trading books, seminars and workshops. Why should you spend another $1,000?
Let me splash a bit of cold water in your face. For every 10 of you reading this article only 1 of you will be profitable. This does not mean exceptional, I just mean profitable. The market is one of the hardest beast to tame. It only allows a select few into the club. So, now that I have managed to offend you, please hear me out before you click away.
Tradingsim allows you to practice for free 24/7, 365 days a year before you risk a dime in the market. Your risk is fixed at our annual subscription rate. These other so-called best online trading sites will dazzle you with free access, but in reality their only mission is to have you fund an account to begin trading. Knowing that only 10% of traders are profitable, why would they do such a thing?
Well it comes down to self-interest; the brokerage firms want you to trade so they can make money on your trading commissions. We at Tradingsim have elected to build or business on the foundation of helping traders discover their strengths before placing money in the market. So, trade or not, we still want your business.
We at Tradingsim pride ourselves on constantly adding new features. Unlike other online stock trading sites, instead of adding feature upon feature to the site, we assess the usage of each feature. Instead of just hoarding every feature which creates a very complicated user experience, we only look to keep the most valuable components in our charting application. This means that over time as we collect feedback from our users, the trading application you see when using Tradingsim has organically been engineered by our users. That’s why when you use Tradingsim, it’s hard to explain in words why the application feels just right.
Did I also mention all of the features of Tradingsim are offered to you in your subscription. If you look at other sites there are some features reserved for the VIP clients who pay a little extra each month. Our clients login to Tradingsim and see new features and enhancements on a regular basis. We do this not to just create more bells and whistles, but to continuously improve on our site in such a way that it will make you a better trader and that my friend should not cost you more money.
I have nothing against people personally that build trading sites without ever trading, but there will always be a little something missing from the equation. Tradingsim has been built from the ground up by traders for traders. We know what it feels like to use other simulators or free tools offering by brokerage firms. We know how frustrating it can be when they only give you a look back period of a few weeks or months. We know what it feels like when your brokerage firm is charging you $100 dollars per month when you may only need to use your simulator a a few hours a month just to stay in the zone. I remember signing up for a free thinkorswim account, only to have them calling me and pressuring me to fund a live account or they were going to terminate my free one. We are not a brokerage firm. We are like you; traders simply looking to find and keep an edge in order to make money in the markets.
You will see simulators and trading sites pop-up all the time around the web. They will have a bunch of flashing lights on their website and will try to entice you to signup for some new hot feature that is going to make you millions in the market. Give it a few years and come back to see if these companies are still in business. We at Tradingsim have been in business since 2009 and have just crossed our 4-year anniversary – GO TEAM! How have we been able to stay in business so long on the fast moving pace of the web? We simply deliver on what we promise to our customers.
This one maybe throwing you for a loop. There are sites which advertise themselves as being online, when in fact their data feed is technically over the internet; however, you will need to download a GUI application to your local machine. This is the case with TDAmeritrade’s Trade Architect and NinjaTrader. We at Tradingsim provide a lightweight online stock trading application that streams directly across your internet browser. There are no downloads or executables you need to worry about. All you have to do is login and the application will appear before your eyes. You maybe asking, why is this important? Let’s say you download your favorite trading site’s application to your home computer. You go to your folks house for the holidays, and now would like to practice trading. You will need to go ask permission to from your Dad to download this software onto his machine. You will likely get the, “Will this create spam on machine or slow down my computer” questions. Once you are of age, the last thing you want to do is relive your childhood. It’s a much better feeling to go to your parents study and just login to Tradingsim like any other website and not have to worry about the residuals of some application you just downloaded to your Dad’s machine.
Other sites talk about support; however, their support begins and ends with their trading platforms. We are a small business and we value each and every client. If you email us at admin@tradingsim.com with a random trading question, know that you will get a response. Our level of support is on a much deeper level than just answering your basic questions about the platform, it truly matters to us that you are successful.
Right now you are reading a blog from one trader to another (you). On these large trading sites, their corporate blogs will cover the next great IPO or merger, but they won’t talk trading in plain speak. You will find articles from people with a large number of acronyms after their names, but are you really able to connect with their overly complicated financial wizardry?
Feel free to read our host of articles over at tradingsim.com/blog. You will find all sorts of articles covering everything from trading psychology to money management.
Check out this review site http://online-stock-trading-review.toptenreviews.com/. This article has a pretty exhaustive list of features, pricing and key data points. The one thing I cannot find in this article is how much money will you make using one broker over the other. If you honestly ask yourself this question you can only arrive at the logical conclusion of you don’t know. The obvious answer is the lowest cost provider. Or you may believe that the platform with the lowest latency will mean you get better fills and over the long run will make more money. You and I both know these are all things to make you feel comfortable with the idea that more tools, or faster connections will lead to you becoming a more profitable trader. You will make money in the market when you are ready. It has very little to do with the platform or system. However, the one thing that is true, the more your practice your craft and learn to trade in the zone the more money you will make. Since Tradingsim provides the largest database of historical tick data (9 months as of the writing of this article) I think it’s safe to say you can literally lose yourself in our application.
The vast majority of online trading sites will require you to have a minimum account balance. These minimums will range from $500 to $2,000. Not to keep rubbing it in, but those free simulators and other applications they offer are clearly not free. Let me ask you a simple question, if you have $2,000 sitting in an account, how long before you place a trade? Will you be able to simulate trading for 3 months, 6 months or a full year without placing a live trade? Are you seeing the light yet?
With Tradingsim you simply come and practice trading until you can see positive growth in your trading account. Under no circumstances should you ever place your own money in the market until you can prove to yourself you can make money on a consistent basis.
Do me a favor. Go and visit the top 10 results in Google for best online trading sites. Do you see anything in common? They all provide a brief platform comparison and some helpful write-ups on each brokerage firm. If you haven’t figured it out yet let me spoil it for you. Each icon for the brokerage firm has a nice button conveniently placed near the company’s image. What do you think happens once you click the button? Bingo, the site receives a nice fat referral fee if you create an account. So, can you really trust any of these review sites? When you start to look at things through this prism, makes my shameless plug of Tradingsim look quite ethical.
If you are still asking this question, you clearly have skimmed this article. When I first started day trading at home I desperately was looking for a risk-free place I could trade without the risk of switching from my simulator to live account (which I did quite frequently). TradeStation which was my platform of choice offered a simulator, but I could only use it during market hours and that’s when I needed to make money. I then went on to download the free version of Ninjatrader, but they required me to record my own data during the day. Needless to say between that painful process and the overly complicated front-end I quickly abandoned Ninjatrader as well. I bounced around to a few more downloadable GUIs, but they all wanted money for the data fees and platform fees and I couldn’t explain spending more money to myself after I was already paying Tradingsim $100 a month.
So, I set out with my business partner Kunal to build a site that provides you the risk-free environment where you can mature as a trader, free of all the bait and switch games of the brokerage firms who are only out to separate you from your money. They like casinos are not concerned with whether you win or not, simply that you play, so they can make money on your trading commissions.
Don’t take our word for it, check out this article on trading platforms and see how TradingSim measures up.
We at Tradingsim believe anyone can get in the 10% club if only they have enough time to become a master of their craft. Come join us today to start your journey towards trading success.