I expect the boom in retail equity options trading to continue, and so I took a long position in thinkorswim (SWIM), a leading discount brokerage firm, this morning. At about 12 times a full-year earnings number I think the company can easily beat, I see the stock as a bargain, especially given strong options industry trading volumes.
On an anecdotal note, I became a thinkorswim customer this year and I couldn't be happier. While the commissions aren't as rock bottom (there is some room for negotiation) as Interactive Brokers' (IBKR), I have been very happy with price improvement on my orders.
Plus, the customer service can't be beat. When I funded my account with a check, I was able to FedEx it overnight, with TOS footing the bill. That wowed me. And when I called customer service for assistance with installing TOS' awesome trading platform, the call was picked up on the first ring and the problem was solved within minutes. What's really awesome is that unlike any other customer service experiences I've had, TOS didn't harass me for account numbers or anything like that - they just helped me get back on my way.
By the way, if anyone would like to follow my trading activity more directly, you can sign up for Covestor and track my portfolio here. Covestor is a social networking site of sorts which allows you to follow other investors' trading actions with a moderate level of detail (stuff like portfolio size is left out) via a link to each member's brokerage account. While I don't like the way Covestor does performance calculations, it is a pretty fun tool.
0 comments:
Post a Comment