11 Best Day Trading Platforms [Apps + Software]

Day trading isn’t for the faint of heart. But if you’re going to white-knuckle your way to stock-market profits, you’d better make sure you’re doing it with the right technology.

Day traders’ needs are more numerous and complex than your average retail investor. They require features such as Level 2 quotes (extremely detailed information about trades being made across the market), direct market routing, backtesting capabilities, and more.

As such, day traders can’t just cover their eyes and toss a dart at just any online stock broker. They need to be more selective.

Today, we’re going to help out with that selection process by exploring some of the best day trading platforms you can find. We’ll include a look at their various features, trading costs, and any other important considerations potential users will need to consider.

What Is Day Trading?

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First, a quick primer for the uninitiated:

Day trading involves making intraday trades to try to profit off short-term movements in stocks, exchange-traded funds (ETFs), options, currencies, and other assets. Day traders employ a number of trading strategies; a few examples include:

• Momentum: Chasing stocks making big price moves
• Pullback: Trading stocks that are in a longer-term uptrend but have temporarily pulled back in price
• News: Trading based on news events, such as earnings announcements or product reveals

Technically, if you even make one trade where you buy and then sell (or sell and then buy) the same security within a trading day, you’ve been engaging in day trading. But there’s also an important day trading designation—a “pattern day trader” (PDT)—that many brokerages use to identify riskier traders. From the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA):

“You’re considered a pattern day trader if you execute four or more ‘day trades’ within five business days—provided that the number of day trades represents more than 6 percent of your total trades in the margin account for that same five business day period.”

Pattern day traders must hold at least $25,000 in their margin accounts (or more depending on a brokerage firm’s own requirements), and face other regulatory limitations, too.

Just go into it with your eyes wide open: More often than not, day traders lose money. Ritholtz Wealth Management’s Ben Carlson provided some disheartening statistics on the dangers of day trading in a post on his A Wealth of Common Sense blog. Among them:

“Research on individual day traders in Taiwan over a 15-year period from 1992 to 2006 showed even the most experienced day traders lose money, and surprisingly even those traders who lose consistently continue to trade despite their losses. … Another study of eToro day-traders found nearly 80% of them lost money over a 12-month period with a median loss of 36%.”

But if you’re still up for day trading, and you’re well aware of (and capable of handling) the risks, the best thing you can do is arm yourself with the technology you need.

Below are some of the best day trading apps, software, and platforms for the task at hand.

Related: 15 Best Stock Research & Analysis Apps, Tools and Sites

Platforms for Day Traders—Our Top Picks

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Best Day Trading Platforms

 

1. Interactive Brokers (Best for Day Traders)

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• Available: Sign up here
• Best for: Advanced and professional traders seeking low margin rates
• Platforms: Desktop app (Windows, macOS), web, mobile app (Apple iOS, Android)

Interactive Brokers, founded in 1978, is one of the largest U.S. electronic trading platforms, offering traders access to stocks, bonds, funds, options, cryptocurrencies, forex trading, futures trading and more.

Costs are a significant advantage for IBKR. Commissions start at $0 for U.S.-listed stocks and ETFs, and commissions are generally low on other products. IBKR also has no account minimums, ticket charges, or added spreads. Day traders will especially love professional-level pricing, which lets investors lower their costs to maximize their returns, as well as margin rates that are up to 51% lower than the industry.

IB’s Trader Workstation (TWS) is Interactive Brokers’ flagship desktop program—a trading platform with roots back to 1995. But since then, the company has launched a number of other access points for brokerage accounts, including:

• IBKR Desktop: This desktop trading platform combines the most popular tools from its flagship Trader Workstation (TWS) with new tools such as a powerful MultiSort screener and Options Lattice, as well as a growing suite of original features suggested by IBKR clients.
• IBKR Mobile: A powerful mobile platform for iOS and Android that allows people to trade on the go.
• IBKR GlobalTrader: A simplified app for iOS and Android that targets global traders, allowing deposits in up to 23 different currencies.
• Client Portal: A lighter web-based platform allowing clients to manage their account, evaluate performance, and read market news.
• IBKR EventTrader: A web-based platform allowing investors to trade “event” contracts (yes-or-no questions like “Will the S&P 500 Index close above 6,000 today?”)
• IBKR Impact: A mobile app that helps investors select holdings most in line with their values.

But Workstation remains the workhorse. The trading platform supports investments across 150 global markets, and offers a wide variety of features, including real-time monitoring, risk management tools, paper trading—all packaged under a heavily customizable layout day traders can use.

While TWS users can still select the original view, day traders can build their own bespoke view through Mosaic. Functions such as stock monitoring, order entry, charts, and more appear as “tiles,” sized and arranged however you want them, and you can save custom layouts designed for one or more monitors.

Interactive Brokers offers a host of features that day traders need, including backtesting, advanced orders, price ladder, and direct market routing (through IBKR Pro). You can also subscribe to Level 2 market data at varying prices depending on which packages you select.

Interactive Brokers’ Trader Workstation also lets day traders:

• Create example watchlists
• Use preset scans or build your own
• Create real-time trading alerts using price, time, margin, and volume
• Access more than 100 order types and algorithms to execute better trades
• Read breaking news from Reuters, Dow Jones, and other financial news outlets
• Access to third-party investment research and free stock reports from Morningstar, Zacks, and other firms

IBKR Lite/IBKR Pro

Interactive Brokers offers two primary plans—IBKR Lite and IBKR Pro—and both have no account minimums and zero maintenance fees. They also provide day traders with access to many of the same features, including the Client Portal, Trader Workstation, and IBKR Mobile platforms; advanced order types; fractional shares of U.S. and European stocks and ETFs; paper trading; and Risk Navigator, which evaluates your risk in single positions or across your entire portfolio.

IBKR Lite is most suitable for beginner and intermediate day traders, offering unlimited commission-free U.S.-listed stock and ETF trading, and fixed pricing for non-U.S.-listed stocks and ETFs, mutual funds, options, and futures.

IBKR Pro, meanwhile, is certainly one of the best online brokers meant for advanced day traders. While it does charge commissions on even U.S.-listed stocks and ETFs, it provides better execution for trades via its IB SmartRouting, which seeks out the best available prices for stocks and options across exchanges and dark pools—possibly resulting in lower spreads that offset the commissions you pay. It also offers better margin rates than Lite, though both trading platforms’ rates are among the best on offer. This Interactive Brokers SmartRouting technology provides incredible speed and efficiency for order execution, and as mentioned, at competitive spreads that result in leading price executions for day traders.

Pro also offers some features not available on IBKR Lite, including higher interest paid on idle cash balances, lower interest charged on margin loans, backtesting, and access to IBKR APIs, which allow you to build your own custom trading applications and even develop commercial trading software—features often used by hedge funds, Registered Investment Advisors (RIAs), and proprietary trading firms.

We should note that IBKR’s rating does get dinged (by both us and app-store users) for its sometimes buggy mobile-app experience. But the desktop day trading app is a mainstay among advanced and active traders looking for the best day trading platform.

You can visit Interactive Brokers to sign up or learn more.

Related: 10 Best Stock Advisor Websites & Services to Seize Alpha

2. NinjaTrader (Best for Technical Analysis Tools and Free Paper Trading for Beginners)

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• Available: Sign up here
• Best for: Active traders specializing in day trading futures and forex (and other assets through third party brokers)
• Platforms: Desktop app (Windows), web, and mobile app (iOS and Android)

NinjaTrader is one of the oldest and best known trading platforms on the market. 

Specializing in technical analysis tools, real-time analysis, and a clean, fully customizable charting experience, NinjaTrader allows you to employ a fully automated trading strategy through its own brokerage service for futures, options on futures, and forex trading. And while that might seem like a limited set of assets (especially for being mentioned as a stock trading app and platform), NinjaTrader’s other core strengths are its ability to integrate with other brokers like IBKR, Schwab (TDAmeritrade), and others for an add-on fee and its NinjaTrader Ecosystem.

This community of vendors and plugins enrich the NinjaTrader experience through offering education-rich content for free and, among other things, allows you to attach NinjaTrader to several supporting brokerages to give traders access to other markets, including options on futures, contracts-for-differences (CFDs), and equities.

NinjaTrader’s platform offers advanced charting with more than 100 technical indicators, advanced order types, automated trading, order flow analysis, streaming historical market replay, the SuperDOM (depth of market) tool, and more. The NinjaTrader desktop app is the most customizable of the platform’s versions, offering access to “thousands of trading apps and add-ons,” you can still enjoy most of NinjaTrader’s functions via its web and mobile apps.

Unfamiliar with futures trading? Anyone with an account can use NinjaTrader’s free futures trading simulator, which includes a backtesting engine that lets you use historical market data to simulate automated trading strategies and see how they would have performed. 

You can download and use NinjaTrader’s platform for free, but you can reduce your commissions by subscribing to a monthly or lifetime account. Additional data does carry additional costs, however. For instance, for CME Level I top of book data (CME, CBOT, NYMEX, and COMEX), it’s $12 per month and Level II costs $41 per month for non-professional users. Professional users pay $135 per month per exchange. ICE Market data also costs $140 per month per exchange for all users.

NinjaTrader’s robust community and suite of tools have established it as a leading charting software—be it for stocks, futures, forex, or other assets. The burgeoning educational guides, video library and free ongoing webinars provide ample access to the understanding traders need to hone their craft. Plus, the platform offers an easy (and free) way to learn what the platform can offer through its SIM trading environment. Consider signing up for a NinjaTrader account and taking the service for a test-drive.

 

3. TradeStation Select (Best Day Trading Platform for Programming-Savvy Day Traders)

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• Available: Sign up here
• Best for: Advanced traders, options and futures traders, active stock traders
• Platforms: Desktop app (Windows), web, mobile app (Apple iOS, Android)

TradeStation Select is a powerful day trading system that includes a full-featured desktop app, a robust web trading platform, and a highly rated stock trading app—all of which include numerous tools for day trading stocks that are useful to day traders.

Much like every other online discount broker found on our list, this free stock trading app helps traders avoid commissions. Specifically, TradeStation offers zero commissions on stocks, exchange-traded funds, options, futures, micro futures, and futures options. It also functions as a direct access trading platform, meaning it connects traders directly with market makers or specialists on the trading floor like the New York Stock Exchange, further helping to lower spreads and the costs of your trades.

But the reason traders opt for TradeStation isn’t just the cost—well, lack of it—but its advanced trading features and services.

What makes TradeStation different?

TradeStation is one of the most high-powered stock trading platforms on this list. That’s because opening a TradeStation brokerage account provides you with free access to the TradeStation Analytics platform, which includes advanced trading tools such as:

• Matrix: TradeStation packs market depth, advanced order entry, and order tracking all in a single window, then combines it with one-click trading and extremely fast order execution. TradeStation calls it the “Swiss Army Knife of trading tools,” and it’s an apt description based on our in-depth experience reviewing these day trading platforms.
• RadarScreen: Identify trading opportunities with RadarScreen, a real-time screener that can monitor as many as 1,000 tickers. You can also use RadarScreen to rank those stocks based on your own custom criteria, or based on more than 180 preset (but customizable) fundamental and technical indicators.
• OptionStation Pro: This app provides a more visually appealing, and easier-to-understand, method of exploring the options markets. You can build option chains, model options positions with 3D graphics, and quickly place your trades.
• EasyLanguage: Want to take your trading to the next level? Create your own trading tools, indicators, even applications, with this trading-focused programming language—a language TradeStation already uses in every one of its indicators, strategies, and user functions.

(Note: Even if you don’t use TradeStation as your trading platform, you can still access TradeStation Analytics for $99 per month if you’re a non-professional trader, or $199 per month if you’re a professional trader.)

Other day trading features include a simulated trading mode that allows you to test out trading plans without putting your funds at risk, backtesting, price ladder, direct market routing, and customizable charting. Level 2 data for equities is available for $11 per month.

A passive feature of note is the Fully Paid Stock Lending Program. Through the program, you can allow TradeStation to lend out fully paid or excess margin securities, and in exchange, they’ll pay you a portion of the interest TS earns each day.

Other considerations

TradeStation is one of the best brokers for day trading, but even experts might need a hand every now and then—and less experienced day traders very well might need assistance. Fortunately, TS offers personalized support from the company’s brokerage professionals.

While TradeStation is commission-free, it’s hardly cost-free. For instance, all stock options trades still require a 60-cent contract fee. Futures trades are charged $1.50 per contract per side, micro futures trades are charged 50 cents per contract per side, and futures options are charged $1.50 per contract per side. Margin rates, currently in the double digits, are high compared to peers based on the findings of our review at the time of this writing. And mutual fund fees are a steep $14.95 per trade—no big deal for day traders, who likely would avoid them anyways, but a hurdle for anyone looking to buy and hold mutual funds in their TS account.

And let’s be clear: Beginning traders could be overwhelmed by this service, which caters to extremely active and experienced day traders who use day trading platforms like TS primarily for its research tools and advanced trading tools.

Regardless, TradeStation’s top-of-class trading tools (and a wide variety of ways to access them) makes it one of the best stock trading platforms for advanced traders on our curated list. Intermediate users should be able to make plenty of hay on this platform, too. So if you’re interested, visit TradeStation to sign up for an account or get more information.

Related: 15 Best Investing Research & Stock Analysis Websites

4. Robinhood (Best Simple Stock Trading App for Beginners)

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• Available: Sign up here
• Best for: Beginner traders
• Platforms: Web, mobile app (Apple iOS, Android)

Robinhood has become a mainstay for younger investors and traders alike, and it has enough features to make it an acceptable offering for budding day traders.

Over the years, Robinhood has added a boatload of features for new and experienced investors alike. Advanced Charts, for instance, provides simple and customizable charts with a variety of technical features. Robinhood’s Options Strategy Builder simplifies the options-trading process by helping you build a strategy based on what you expect your target stock or ETF will do in the future. Robinhood also offers 24/7 commission-free cryptocurrency trading with Robinhood Crypto (though you’ll still have to pay a spread), allows extended-hours trading, and lets users earn interest through stock lending.

Robinhood does offer a paid subscription service—Robinhood Gold—with several more features mostly geared toward advanced traders. Benefits include Level 2 market data provided by Nasdaq, a lower charged rate on margin investing than regular accounts, higher interest on uninvested brokerage cash via the cash sweep program, and bigger Instant Deposits.

Even at the Gold level, Robinhood doesn’t offer some advanced trading features, such as a price ladder, direct market routing, advanced orders, and backtesting. But it’s still one of the best choices for aspiring traders looking to get their feet wet.

Sign up for a Robinhood brokerage account today.

Related: 11 Best Stock Trading Apps [Free + Paid]

5. Webull (Ideal for Intermediate Investors + Traders)

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• Available: Sign up here
• Best for: Self-directed investors and intermediate traders
• Platforms: Desktop app (Windows, macOS, Linux), web, mobile app (Apple iOS, Android)

Webull first hit the investing world in 2018 and made a splash by offering free stock trading, as well as commission-free trading of ETFs and options. And since then, it has become one of the best stock apps for intermediate traders and investors, though many of its features are helpful to beginners as well.

For one, Webull remains friendly to wallet-conscious traders today. It costs nothing to open a Webull account. Stocks, ETFs, and options still trade without transaction fees. Many options have $0 contract fees. And Webull has no deposit minimums. On top of that, it offers fractional shares, which allows investors to start buying for as little as $1. So beginners working with small dollar amounts can still easily diversify across numerous investments.

Newer investors can also learn trading skills through the courses in Webull’s education center, and even practice their skills via Webull’s paper trading service. (I’ve personally used this service and will admit practicing my trades here has saved my family and I many thousands of dollars by virtue of having the losses only exist virtually. My wife never needs to know the fictitious fortunes I’ve managed to lose for us time and time again.)

And if you wondered whether you could access Webull on your personal devices, Webull is available across just about every platform, allowing you to research, trade, and track your stocks on your smartphone, tablet, or desktop.

Why choose Webull to trade stocks?

Webull provides investors with several useful features and tools, including:

• Customizable screeners for both stocks and ETFs
• Preset lists–including Top Gainers, Top Losers, Most Active, and Best-Performing Industries—investors can use to identify opportunities
• Voice commands: Simply speak to buy, sell, or look up information about a ticker
• “Big Button Mode”: Populates giant buttons on your screen that allow you to quickly make trades with just a push.
• Charting tools
• Free real-time stock quotes and stock alerts

If you want to step up your trading game, Webull offers one month of free Level 2 quotes from Nasdaq TotalView, followed by a cheap subscription cost of just $1.99 per month. Webull also has advanced orders and a price ladder, though it lacks backtesting and direct market routing.

We’ll point out that while Webull allows for many types of commission-free trades, other costs will still apply to a few transactions. For instance, a 55-cent contract fee applies to certain options trades. And Webull doesn’t directly charge fees for trading cryptocurrencies; however, it does build a 1-percentage-point markup into the price of cryptocurrency when you buy or sell crypto—a benchmark we’ve found many brokers charge for the asset class.

One particularly noteworthy shortcoming for investors is that you can’t buy mutual funds on Webull. Yes, ETFs offer a wide array of diversified strategies, but the mutual fund world offers some cheap index funds and many successful actively managed strategies.

Regardless, Webull remains one of the best, and most cost-friendly, trading platforms you can come across. And on top of all the free features mentioned above, Webull also runs frequent promotions that allow investors to collect free stocks.

Read more in our Webull review, or sign up at Webull today.

Related: 10 Best Stock Picking Services, Subscriptions, Advisors & Sites

6. eToro (Best Day Trading Platform for CopyTrading)

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• Available: Sign up here
• Best for: Intermediate traders
• Platforms: Desktop app (Windows, macOS), web, mobile app (Apple iOS, Android)

Most trading apps keep you in one place: Your account. But eToro wants to change that.

eToro has made investing social by giving you the chance to engage with other traders, creating a social trading network designed to share ideas on the publicly traded markets. You can trade stocks, exchange-traded funds (ETFs), and options commission-free, and you can also get exposure to cryptocurrencies.

eToro is known for its CopyTrader service—a novel product that allows you to copy the trades of experienced investors automatically. No more guesswork on making trades yourself; you simply follow the leader and let the app handle the legwork for you. While this might not interest advanced traders, it’s an appealing feature for moderately experienced traders looking to replicate the performance of popular traders on the platform. (Editor’s Note: Even though this can make for a fun trading experience, you should still be fully aware of the risks entailed through this feature—namely, the potential for losses.)

More experienced day traders might bemoan the lack of several important features, including Level 2 quotes, backtesting, price ladder, and direct market routing, and you can only use advanced orders through crypto trading. (Popular traders who allow themselves to be copied by others on the platform can earn income, rewards and perks from eToro through participating in the CopyTrader program.)

Of course, you don’t have to copy anyone—you can trade on your own ideas. This intuitive investing app began with a strong crypto focus, but you can now make self-directed trades across a host of other assets.

The trading app offers access to dozens of cryptocurrencies, hundreds of ETFs, and thousands of stocks. When you trade crypto with the platform, you’ll encounter what we’ve found to be an industry-standard spread of 1%. Of particular interest to options traders, eToro charges no options contract fees in the U.S. (but it does levy a $0.65 fee per option contract in the U.K.). Investors can also use the app to understand environmental, social, and governance (ESG) scores through their user-friendly “traffic light” color scheme: green means the company is a leader in its sector, yellow indicates average, and red means the company scores poorly relative to sector competitors.

Lastly, if you’d like to invest based on a specific theme or strategy, eToro offers Smart Portfolios. These are fully allocated, balanced portfolios, investing in various market segments, that are backed by professional research and various risk management rules. You only need $500 to participate in Smart Portfolios, and you pay no management fees.

And for people interested in testing the waters without opening their wallet at the start, eToro offers a free demo account that comes with $100,000 in virtual money to test your trade ideas.

Opening an account is quick and simple to do. Simply visit eToro’s website to open and fund an account.

Related: 12 Best Stock Trading Apps + Platforms for Beginners

7. Schwab/TDAmeritrade’s Thinkorswim (Great for All Experience Levels)

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• Available: Sign up here
• Best for: All levels of trading experience
• Platforms: Desktop app (Windows, macOS, Linux), web, mobile app (Apple iOS, Android)

Schwab is among the best stock trading apps for intermediate and beginner traders. Charles Schwab announced in 2019 that it would acquire TD Ameritrade, and it closed on the deal in 2020. Schwab recently folded the TD Ameritrade system into its own platform by announcing it would migrate existing TD accounts over to Schwab effective in 2023.

One thing that will stick around is TD’s popular Thinkorswim—an advanced trading platform also available across desktop, web, and mobile. The service boasts 400,000 economic data points, more than 400 technical studies, an earnings tool that explains their effect on options prices, even a programming language so you can build your own trading algorithms. And the Thinkorswim mobile app is more dynamic than even many full-featured desktop and web platforms. Schwab’s equivalent is StreetSmart Edge, which simultaneously isn’t as powerful but is more streamlined and user-friendly.

TD and Schwab’s primary offerings have a lot of similarities, especially on pricing. Both have zero commissions for stock and ETF trades. Both charge 65 cents per contract on options trades, and $2.25 per contract on futures trades. Both offer desktop apps, mobile apps, and web interfaces. Schwab and TD both offer robo-advisory products. They both have 24/7 customer support. They even share a similar drawback: neither directly offers cryptocurrency, just Bitcoin futures.

I also learned, through a conversation with Schwab’s (extremely helpful) account manager for this article, that TD day traders will have nothing to fear from the move, either. Schwab currently doesn’t have backtesting but will, through Thinkorswim. And Schwab already offers the same trading-focused options that TD does, including Level 2 quotes, advanced orders, direct routing, and price ladder.

TD Ameritrade users might feel the switch is a downgrade. But they’ll get a couple of upgrades, too, including a larger selection of no-load, no-fee mutual funds (more than 20,000 at Schwab vs. more than 3,600 at TD), and more initial access to international exchanges. And for advanced traders, Schwab does feature higher-than-average margin rates, but that’s still better than TD, which typically had some of the highest margin rates among popular brokerages.

To access Thinkorswim and the overall Schwab interface, you’ll need to create an account with Schwab. Once you click the link, simply click the “Visit Site” button on the landing page to be directed to Schwab’s main site to sign up.

Related: 12 Best Investment Opportunities for Accredited Investors

8. E*Trade (Best for Intermediate Investors + Traders)

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• Available: Click “Open Account” below
• Best for: Intermediate options traders
• Platforms: Web, mobile app (Apple iOS, Android)

E*Trade has long been seen as a leading stock trading app for retail investors. It allows you to invest in a wide array of assets, and it provides educational resources that will help you with investment research, portfolio analysis, and building a diversified set of holdings.

E*Trade, like most of the best stock investing apps, offers zero-commission stock, ETF, and options trading. It also has a leg up on some platforms by offering $0 commissions on mutual fund, Treasury, and new-issue bond trading. Investors also have access to futures, micro futures, and futures options, among other investment types.

Like with many zero-commission options trading platforms, though, options still have contract fees. Equity and index options are 65¢ regularly, though they’re reduced to 50¢ if you place more than 30 stock, ETF, or options trades per quarter. (E*Trade also has an options program called the “Dime Buyback Program.” If you close an equity option priced at 10¢ or less, E*Trade won’t charge you a per-contract fee.) A couple other fees worth noting are futures ($1.50 per contract) and secondary bond market trades ($1 each).

Day traders will enjoy features including advanced order types, direct market routing (at a 0.5-cent-per-share fee), and its Options Income Backtester. E*Trade also has Level 2 equity and equity options quotes for $24 per month.

If you use E*Trade, you’ll do so via one of two platforms—both of which are free, and both of which have web and mobile versions:

Power E*Trade

Power E*Trade is a trading platform designated for more intermediate-to-advanced traders. Features include:

• Advanced charting that includes intraday and historical options; more than 100 studies; over 100 drawing tools; and the ability to automatically identify technical patterns
• Snapshot Analysis, which lays out risk-reward probabilities in your options trading
• Powerful stock and trade scanner; use preset filters or customize as you wish
• Paper trading to test out strategies without putting your money at risk
• Price ladder
• Ability to design exit strategies

Like with the Power E*Trade web platform, the Power E*Trade app is a more powerful version of its basic counterpart. This app allows you to use preset scans, work with interactive charts, place complex options trades, and more.

E*Trade

The “basic” E*Trade web platform might be more suitable for beginning-to-intermediate traders and investors, but in our opinion, that doesn’t mean it’s short on features.

E*Trade’s main web platform includes everything you need to keep up to date on your portfolio, including real-time quotes, charts, market commentary, and stock news. The latter includes free access to Bloomberg TV, Thomson Reuters, and TipRanks research. Meanwhile, you’ll have ample research tools at your disposal, including stock, mutual fund, bond, and ETF screeners; trade optimizers; backtesters; and more.

Other considerations

Like with a couple other trading apps on this list, E*Trade also allows you to earn additional income by allowing the firm to borrow your fully paid-for holdings. E*Trade also offers retirement planning to clients as well as some in-person informational sessions.

Read our review to learn more, or visit E*Trade and sign up by clicking “Open Account” below.

Related: 15 Best High-Yield Investments [Safe Options Right Now]

Best Day Trading Platforms: Analytics Tools

9. Trade Ideas (Best Stock Analysis Site for Active Traders)

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• Available: Sign up here

Trade Ideas employs an artificial intelligence-powered assistant named Holly. This AI becomes your virtual research analyst who never sleeps and instead sifts through technicals, fundamentals, social media, earnings, and more to pick stocks as real-time trade recommendations.

Holly stays busy, too. She runs more than 1 million simulated trades each night and morning before the markets open with more than 60 proprietary algorithms to find you the highest-probability, most risk-appropriate opportunities to invest in stocks.

This stock scanning and analysis tool doesn’t stop there, though. You can also build your own scanners and screeners with over 500 data points and indicators to choose from. You can backtest your trading strategies, and also forward-test them in the real-time trade simulator. This allows you to learn, test, and optimize, without risking your own money.

The powerful service allows you to access real-time streaming trading ideas on simultaneous charts to learn how to trade into risk-reward balanced trades. In other words: You can invest and learn at the same time.

Where Trade Ideas excels

Where Trade Ideas excels is not only giving you the data and ideas you haven’t seen elsewhere, but also how to manage your money. The AI-powered smart risk levels on every chart are suitable for both long-term investors and active traders.

As the stock market evolves, TI’s software adjusts levels and the trading plan to match. The best part? You can learn how to do all of this without risking your principal through a real-time simulated trading environment.

After you’ve grown comfortable with the service and trading, you can choose to go live with the trade ideas and start investing real money by connecting directly through a brokerage like Interactive Brokers or E*Trade. (The full list of available brokers you can use through the service is available on Trade Ideas’ site.)

I’m a newsletter and alert aficionado, so I should point out a couple of Trade Ideas features. For one, it has a standalone alert service in the form of a weekly Swing Picks newsletter. This gives you five new trade ideas in your inbox from the company’s model portfolio every Monday. Trade Ideas’ Standard and Premium subscriptions include these stock picks. Trade Ideas also has a free Trade of the Week newsletter highlighting one stock pick TI has identified for members.

How does Trade Ideas find stock picks?

Trade Ideas finds its Strength Alerts by focusing on a unique approach that emphasizes relative strength. They start by identifying the most effective indicators and chart setups, based on their top-performing algorithms. They proceed by applying statistical analysis to assign weighted values to each indicator and chart setup, allowing for a quantitative evaluation of their significance. Advanced server technology allows TI to evaluate every stock in the market using these weights and then sort them based on which achieved the highest score. Their team of experts curates these findings to ensure subscribers receive only the most promising trade recommendations.

While Trade Ideas offers exceptional value, it’s important to note that there’s a considerable investment required. Note that you must sign up for Premium to receive full access to the Holly experience. However, you can enjoy a big discount by using the code mentioned below.

Consider starting your Trade Ideas subscription with no contract involved. Cancel anytime.

Related: Best Investing Apps for Teens

10. TrendSpider (Best for Refining Trading Strategies)

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• Available: Sign up here
• Best for: Traders of all experience levels looking to trade more efficiently
• Platforms: Web, mobile app (Apple iOS, Android)

TrendSpider offers a comprehensive platform for traders to create, backtest, and refine trading strategies, scan and analyze the market, and time trades with precision. With its advanced tools and features, TrendSpider is designed to make trading more efficient for both novice and experienced traders.

Among the platform’s powerful tools:

• Robust technical charting and pattern recognition features, such as native multi-timeframe analysis, automatic trendlines, and Smart Checklists
• Raindrop Charts^®, which provide a new way to visualize market data, focusing on trading volume at each price level
• Alternative data offerings including information on options flow, analyst actions, market breadth, insider trades, and more
• Data Flow, which enables real-time tracking of market data for all symbols, including analyst estimates, earnings, news, and unusual options flow
• Strategy Tester, which allows users to quickly develop and test trading strategies without any coding required; users can configure entry and exit rules and explore the performance of their strategies directly on the price chart
• Backtesting capabilities for technical, non-technical, and event-based strategies; once a winning strategy is identified, users can deploy it as a trading bot with just one click

Of particular note for traders is TrendSpider’s Scanner feature, which allows you to instantly test any strategy on any market and search for ideal trading opportunities. The stock scanner supports searching through watchlists, indexes, and more than 700 smart lists. Users can mix and match conditions and timeframes, allowing them to express any view in a single scan. The platform also provides a range of pre-made scanners to help users get started.

TrendSpider’s mobile app ensures traders are always connected to their charts and scanners, while the Chrome extension allows users to access real-time charts while browsing the web. The platform also offers extensive educational resources through TrendSpider University and detailed documentation for its features.

The platform also supports integration with external systems using webhooks, enabling traders to build custom alerts and bots that interact with social media channels, private chat servers, email, or order routers connected to brokerage accounts. TrendSpider’s SignalStack service can turn any signal or alert on TrendSpider into a live order in a trader’s account.

Learn more about the platform’s capabilities or sign up for TrendSpider today.

 

11. TradingView (Investment Research for Day Traders)

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• Available: Sign up here

TradingView is a useful investment research software for stock traders who rely on technical analysis.

The stock research app provides stock charts with real-time data and personally selected indicators including moving averages, Relative Strength Index (RSI), Bollinger Bands, and more.

TradingView also provides a powerful stock screener that can help you research stocks, mutual funds, ETFs, closed-end funds (CEFs), foreign exchange (forex), cryptocurrencies, and more. The screener comes with pre-built data sets, with fundamental sets including the likes of Overview, Performance, and Dividends, and even technical sets such as Oscillators and Trend-Following. TradingView also pre-built screens, such as Large-Cap, High-Dividend, Most Volatile, even Largest Employers.

This investment research service works well for traders looking to gain an edge on the stock market by utilizing the 50-plus data feeds and exchanges offered on the platform.

Related: How to Invest Money: 5 Steps to Start Investing w/Little Money

FAQs About the Best Day Trading Platform Options

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What is a pattern day trader?

As we mentioned above, FINRA defines a pattern day trader (PDT) as someone who has executed four or more day trades within five business days, as long as that number represented more than 6% of total trades from their margin account over the period.

Does the SEC have special rules to trade stocks intraday?

FINRA, not the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), established the rules on day trading. FINRA requires pattern day traders to have at least $25,000 of equity (cash and eligible securities) in their margin accounts to participate in day trading. If the equity in a margin account falls below that, the trader must stop day trading until the equity returns above that threshold. PDTs also can’t trade in excess of their day-trading buying power (usually up to four times the maintenance margin excess).

Why do you need $25,000 to day trade?

The $25,000 requirement acts as a cushion for your brokerage firm. While trades might appear closed in your brokerage account, they might take more time to actually settle. The $25,000 buffer protects the brokerage firm from any deficiencies in your account that might occur as these day trades settle.

Can you day trade without $25,000 in your account?

If you are a pattern day trader, no, you cannot. If you are not a pattern day trader, you can execute day trades without $25,000 in your account as long as you don’t hit the threshold for being labeled a pattern day trader.

Can you start day trading with $1,000?

Yes. Day trading is only defined by buying then selling (or selling then buying) a security within the same trading day. In some cases, just a few dollars is enough to complete a day trade.

Is day trading still profitable?

Day trading can absolutely be profitable, but the odds are not in your favor. Numerous studies have shown that the majority of day traders lose money, and that those losses can be significant. Your best bet: Find a top online broker for day trading so you at least have the tools you’ll need to succeed.