Overview of the investment and trading platform ThinkOrSwim

ThinkOrSwim (TOS) – an overview of the investment and trading platform. Thinkorswim is a fully functional investment platform with desktop, web and mobile versions. Desktop software can be downloaded, mobile apps are available for iPhone, Android, tablets and smart watches. The versions offer slightly different options, but in general, all major asset classes can be traded on Thinkorswim – stocks, mutual funds,
ETFs (exchange-traded funds), options, futures, bonds, CDs (certificates of deposit) and forex (foreign exchange).

A detailed overview of the ThinkOrSwim platform

Thinkorswim provides access to professional-grade trading tools that help you quickly react and manage risk. The platform has a wide range of technical features and trading tools, is very detailed, which allows trading both at a basic level and for experienced traders. ToS is known for its thoughtful and customizable interface, filled with technical analysis and charting tools, as well as software features that help improve the efficiency of the trader. This is a platform where searching for a stock shows not only its price, but also the spread between bid and offer, the option chain and the OCO order.
Active traders recognize it as one of the best trading platforms. It is so in demand in the trading community that many users open a TD Ameritrade account just to get access to ToS.
The software was created by Tom Sosnoff and Scott Sheridan in 1999. The platform gained great popularity after it was acquired by the American brokerage company TD Ameritrade in 2009. This is an advanced trading platform that allows you to trade almost any instrument. This includes stocks, options, ETFs, bonds, futures, and options on futures. In addition to trading, the platform allows you to perform a comprehensive analysis of stocks and potential transactions. The platform is available for Windows, Mac, on the web, and as a mobile app. The web version mimics the visual layout of the desktop, although it doesn’t have as many features. ToS allows you to log into a real or paper trading account. Paper trading on practical accounts (also known as “simulated” or “virtual”) is useful for practicing strategies and understanding what how certain transactions work. The Thinkorswim official website, offering a wide range of both technical and fundamental analysis, allows you to view not only the movement of assets, but also news information about the companies behind them. For any asset, you can create your own trading screen, displaying questions that are important for your own strategy. Whether you need information about prices, volatility or indicators, Thinkorswim has charting capabilities. There are hundreds of technical indicators to choose from, so every trader will find the one that best suits their needs. The platform operates in two modes: thinkorswim Paper Money and Live Trading. allows you to view not only the movement of assets, but also news information about the companies behind them. For any asset, you can create your own trading screen, displaying questions that are important for your own strategy. Whether you need information about prices, volatility or indicators, Thinkorswim has charting capabilities. There are hundreds of technical indicators to choose from, so every trader will find the one that best suits their needs. The platform operates in two modes: thinkorswim Paper Money and Live Trading. allows you to view not only the movement of assets, but also news information about the companies behind them. For any asset, you can create your own trading screen, displaying questions that are important for your own strategy. Whether you need information about prices, volatility or indicators, Thinkorswim has charting capabilities. There are hundreds of technical indicators to choose from, so every trader will find the one that best suits their needs. The platform operates in two modes: thinkorswim Paper Money and Live Trading. volatility or indicators, Thinkorswim has charting capabilities. There are hundreds of technical indicators to choose from, so every trader will find the one that best suits their needs. The platform operates in two modes: thinkorswim Paper Money and Live Trading. volatility or indicators, Thinkorswim has charting capabilities. There are hundreds of technical indicators to choose from, so every trader will find the one that best suits their needs. The platform operates in two modes: thinkorswim Paper Money and Live Trading.

• Paper Money is a demo version with data delay and limited filter settings.
• Live Trading works in real time.

In terms of security, according to the financial industry regulator (FINRA), TD Ameritrade is both a brokerage firm and an investment advisor. She is also a member of the Securities Investor Protection Corporation (SIPC), which protects clients from losing cash and securities up to $500,000 in the event of a brokerage firm going bankrupt. TD Ameritrade has an asset protection guarantee and promises to refund clients if they lose cash or securities due to fraud.

Description, functionality, ToS interface

First of all, it is important to learn how to use Thinkorswim, starting with the layout and settings of the platform, different tabs and interfaces. After the Thinkorswim software is downloaded and installed, you need to open it and log in. The workspace can be divided into two parts – the left sidebar and the main window.

1. The left sidebar is where the gadgets you need to work are stored.
2. The main window includes nine tabs with different functions, each of which has sub-tabs dedicated to specific functions.
3. ” Monitoring ” tracks trading activity and includes data such as orders, positions, trading account status, and the like.
4. ” Trading ” includes “All Products”, “Forex Trader”, “Futures Trader”, “Pairs Trader” and “Active Trader”.
5. ” Analysis ” offers different methods of analysis (volatility and probability, databases of indicators of economic data and testing of options on historical data), both for real and hypothetical transactions, including scenario modeling “what if”. The Probability Analysis tool helps you determine if a stock will move in the future (which can also be done by expanding the charts). Active traders can use the thinkScript programming language to create their own research, trading strategies, alerts and more.
6. ” Scan ” allows you to filter available stock options, futures, forex products based on personal interests.
7. ” Market Watch ” is a variety of market data and methods that help to process them. The tab has several tabs – “Quotes”, “Alerts”, “Visualization”, “Funding Rates” and “Calendar”.
8. ” Charts ” – a graphical interface of real-time market data with a wide range of technical analysis tools.
9. ” Tools ” includes a number of handy features – thinkLog, Videos and Shared Items.
10. “Tutorial” and “Help” are self-explanatory. By clicking on the Learn tab, thinkorswim com takes you to a learning center that has tutorials on everything from platform layout to entry and exit strategies to the Forex Trader interface. A range of financial literacy education programs are available in a variety of interactive forms, including instructor-led synchronous and asynchronous online courses, face-to-face workshops, online coaching programs, phone and online chats, and email support. The Learning Center offers educational webcasts on how to trade futures and how to use the “Calendar” interface that includes earnings reports, conference calls and the like.

The left sidebar is divided into two help areas. The first one contains account information. It displays indicators such as available cash and the purchasing power of options. If a futures or forex account is opened, their balances are also displayed here. The second contains gadgets that allow you to view trading information, find out news, quotes, even play a couple of built-in games to get a little distraction, but at the same time do not leave the main window of the platform. The content is fully customizable, the user decides which gadgets to add or remove. You can have up to 15 gadgets at the same time, but only a fraction of them are displayed on the screen at any given time. But if at a particular moment there is no need for any of the gadgets, you can hide the entire sidebar.
The necessary ways to configure the platform are interactive elements. These are icons that help you use, customize, hide gadgets or interfaces, link them together. The thinkorswim website also offers keyboard shortcuts. The list of keyboard shortcuts that will be used for certain commands can be customized. Setting up Thinkorswim 2021: working with charts, overview of all features: https://youtu.be/tVPew-OCmek

Tools – indicators, strategies, terminals, robots

What the thinkorswim platform is famous for is indicators. It has hundreds of preloaded studies and strategies. Charts also offer extensive customization options. You can change the chart type from Candlestick, Bar, Line, Equivolume, Heikin Ashi.
The default chart style is a candlestick with a price column on the right and time along the x-axis. Rectangular bubbles represent the lowest and highest prices in the time frame, icons represent earnings announcements and stock splits. At the bottom is a histogram showing the daily volume. Chart fans can customize the time frame, colors, cursor, and even the background. You can separate and increase a certain period of time, make notes with drawings, add studies as indicators of volatility:

1. There is a small box in the center of each chart. This is because flexible mesh editing is enabled. This small box allows you to add and remove charts in a flexible grid. To access it, click on the 9 dots icon in the upper right corner of the application and select “Set Up Grid”.
2. To add moving averages and patterns to a grid, right-click on any grid and select any of the styles, patterns, or studies. At the top of each grid, there is an icon marked “D” that allows you to quickly change the time frame of the grid.
3. Each mesh is independent. However, you can link grids and even watchlists to them by clicking on the chain icon next to the symbol field in the upper left corner of the grid.
4. Choose a color that matches the color of the watchlist (possibly red). When you click on a watchlist symbol/stock, it populates the grid with that stock. Thus, it is possible to link two grids for multiple timeframes or studies.

Fundamental analysis is best done in the desktop version, which has a range of widgets including news, analysis, currency maps, level 2 data, and tetris. Level 2 data in particular helps make the Thinkorswim trading terminal useful for intraday traders and other high-speed, high-volume investors. In addition to these features Russian Thinkorswim supports a full range of complex order types. For both stocks and derivatives, you can set up pre-arranged trades with a wide range of positions. Thinkorswim Broker expands the selection from basic options like limits and stops to synchronized trades, triggers, conditional orders and more in a system that supports up to eight stages. Function of paper money officially stylized as paperMoney allows you to practice trading and become familiar with the platform without risk. Paper money comes with a practice margin account and a practice IRA account with $100,000. Purchasing power and net liquidation value can be seen in the Account Information gadget located in the top left corner. When thinkorswim register papermoney (in paper money mode), the data is delayed by 20 minutes. The trading platform requires a funded account to access real-time market data. Whether you use a paper account or a real account, thinkorswim has a plethora of trading tools to help implement your trading strategies. Among them are Live News (headlines of financial news from various sources) and Trader TV (webcasts of video news and analysis) – on the left sidebar. Here you can also set up a watchlist that will display ticker symbols for specific securities and market data. At first, when setting up the Thinkorswim platform is just being studied, you can just play with something standard, for example, with the Dow Jones industrial index.

Registering an account in the Russian Federation – what is the difficulty

It is not possible to register and get a real account on Thinkorswim for non-US residents. TD Ameritrade is actively blocking Thinkorswim accounts outside of the US. For many years, TD Ameritrade has banned TOS Realtime in many countries, making registration with real-time quotes problematic. At first, it was still possible to find ways to get around the ban. Thinkorswim Infinity worked, it was possible to register with only an email address. The user received a login and password for a demo account, in which there was a real-time mode. But TDA removed realtime in demos. In addition, there was a bug for several months, when entering a login with a capital letter, the system mistakenly started up in real time. Thinkorswim has fixed this bug by making it even more difficult to sign up for a TOS account. In this way, possibilities are almost exhausted. But not everything is so hopeless and there are options for how to register thinkorswim, moreover, official ones:

1. If there is someone from acquaintances, friends or relatives, it is possible to open an account for a US citizen, of course, provided that this someone agrees to open a tos thinkorswim account in real time in their name. It’s pretty formal and stretched out over time. You need to draw up, print out a lot of documents, sign them, send them by mail, wait another two months for verification. And no one guarantees anything. In the case of the implementation of such a plan, according to the new server policy, the company closes accounts older than six months with a zero balance in the account. Therefore, in order to protect your account from blocking, losing settings, indicators and recovery time, you need to replenish your account with a minimum amount.
2. You need to contact TDA and solve the thinkorswim realtime for russian problem through the rental service. The server offers platform rental for a period of 6 to 12 months with a 100% money back guarantee within 48 hours after payment, if the quality of the service is not satisfactory. The prices are optimal!

Brokerage services

Generally, there are four types of fees to look out for when choosing a trading platform and when evaluating any investment or trading service:

1. Any fixed fees charged per transaction. This can be a fixed fee or what is known as a “spread” (a fee to a broker based on the difference between the buying and selling price of an asset).
2. Trading commissions, where the broker charges a percentage based on the volume or value of each trade.
3. Inactivity fees that a broker charges for a user not trading (inactive), such as keeping money in a brokerage account.
4. Another form of platform trading fees. For example, a brokerage company may charge fees for making deposits into, withdrawing money from, or subscribing to additional services.

TD Ameritrade’s Thinkorswim pricing models are in line with most of the market. TD Ameritrade does not charge for the Thinkorswim terminal or data. For online stocks listed on US stock exchanges, US and Canadian ETFs and options, there is no commission and options cost $0.65 per contract. Most bonds cost $1, while mutual funds not included in TD Ameritrade’s extensive list of free investments cost $50. Futures contracts can cost up to $5 per trade. Forex trades are based on the bid/ask spread between individual currencies, and foreign stocks are subject to a $6.95 commission. Unlike many complex platforms, there is no minimum balance to use Thinkorswim, although margin traders will need to maintain it. TD Ameritrade supports short selling and margin orders and interest rates start at 9, 5% depending on the account balance. Trading with a broker is available for $25 per trade. The platform does not charge fees for most standard transactions such as depositing or withdrawing money. However, depending on specific transactions, some niche fees may apply.

Thinkorswim® web – installation, configuration, interface, tools, trading

Thinkorswim web is a simple platform with no download required. Uses core Thinkorswim tools:

1. An intuitive interface that puts the most important tools in the foreground.
2. You can log in anywhere with an internet connection using web access and use pre-configured strategies to set up orders with one click.
3. In addition to stocks, options and ETFs, Thinkorswim Web provides access to futures and forex for advanced trading.

To buy shares, you need to open the “Trade” tab. You can enter a symbol in the All Products sub-tab and see the name, last traded price, profit or loss, whether it is easy to get a loan, and where the shares are listed.
Click “Company Profile” for more details, including Thinkorswim’s opinion on what drives the stock, valuation highlights, sources of value, and key trends. Back to the buying process. There are several ways to do this, but one of them is to find the “Underlying Assets” section and click on the offer price labeled “Ask X”. An order form should appear below. Specify the desired number of shares, the type of order and how long it should remain in effect. Confirm and submit. Trades are usually executed quickly. According to TD Ameritrade, the average time it takes for market orders to execute is 0.06 seconds.
Options trading in ToS uses the same mechanics as stock trading. To buy options, in the “Trade” tab, find the “Options chain” section and enter the ticker symbol. By right-clicking on any strike on the call side, left, or put, right, or clicking once on the ask/bid price, you can choose to buy or sell the option. Fill out the order form, specifying the quantity, type of order, fixing the price and validity period and click confirm and send.

Thinkorswim® Desktop – installation, configuration, interface, tools, trading

You can download Thinkorswim for free on the official TD Ameritrade website. Before using the program, you need to create an account with a broker – TD Ameritrade. Open an account and download the installer. A wizard will appear to help you install thinkorswim appropriate for your operating system. Downloading can take from a couple of minutes to half an hour, depending on the speed of the Internet connection. Once the download is complete, the installation wizard should start automatically.
After verifying your account and installing the software, you can easily log in using your username and password.
Thinkorswim is supposed to be running Zulu OpenJDK 11. On Linux, unlike Windows and macOS, it will need to be installed and updated (it is not included with the application).

1. The download for Windows includes a Java virtual machine. If you upgrade from a 32-bit installation to a 64-bit installation, the installer will automatically detect the old installation and keep the existing settings.
2. Mac users require OS X 10.11 or later.
3. Thinkorswim for Linux requires Zulu OpenJDK 11 (general installation instructions can be found on the Zulu website).
4. For Unix or Unix-like operating systems, Java 11 must be installed (Azul’s Zulu OpenJDK 11 is preferred).

Thinkorswim® Desktop provides access to trading tools and a platform backed by insights, training and dedicated service. Using a tool such as thinkorswim scripts, you can create your own order fulfillment algorithms and strategic testing.

Thinkorswim® mobile – installation, configuration, interface, tools, trading

The mobile application mirrors the functionality of the desktop computer, offering almost all the tools and options available in the browser version.
A wide range of charting and indicator options. Access to over 300 charting functions and trading indicators for detailed trading. Possibilities of profit analysis. The analysis tool can help you identify potential opportunities and especially areas of unsustainable risk, which will help you protect yourself from a market downturn. Risk Free Demo Trading: Mastering thinkorswim’s vast array of available features can be a daunting task. If you are a beginner trader who wants to learn by doing, open a Thinkorswim Papermoney demo account and improve your strategy with virtual dollars. Trade stocks, multi-light options, futures and options on futures. The app is available for Apple and Android devices.

• Thinkorswim download from the App Store https://apps.apple.com/app/apple-store/id299366785
• Thinkorswim free download on Google Play https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.devexperts.tdmobile.platform.android.thinkorswim

Pros and cons of TOS platforms

The range of tools offered by the software is dizzying. These are hundreds of discrete technical indicators and a piece of tracking data. It offers over 4,000 different data points from banks and the Federal Reserve. Desktop version – almost endless customization options. The platform itself is simple. While it doesn’t offer the lightning-fast speed or macro-intensive use of other platforms built specifically for intraday traders, it is a responsive system that lets you create a variety of windows and widgets. On the other hand, searching for even a single asset can mean digging through multiple menu layers. While looking for data for this asset means looking for even more. The tools are hidden at the top of the screen, in three menu layers, inside the left widget, right toolbar and so on. Thinkorswim offers some of the highest levels of data and options of any high-tech trading platform on the market today. This is an extensive and extremely complex program, so even the most sophisticated traders should expect a long learning curve. Despite long training, once the system is mastered, it becomes easier to work with it. And while TOS often requires many more clicks per action than competitors, customization options mitigate this problem. You can customize the trading screen to your preferred instruments and data. therefore, even the most sophisticated traders should expect a long learning curve. Despite long training, once the system is mastered, it becomes easier to work with it. And while TOS often requires many more clicks per action than competitors, customization options mitigate this problem. You can customize the trading screen to your preferred instruments and data. therefore, even the most sophisticated traders should expect a long learning curve. Despite long training, once the system is mastered, it becomes easier to work with it. And while TOS often requires many more clicks per action than competitors, customization options mitigate this problem. You can customize the trading screen to your preferred instruments and data.