TradeMONSTER Review

tradeMONSTER Review

When it comes to powerful platforms for trading options, tradeMONSTER competes among the best in the industry. Built as a web-based platform, tradeMONSTER innovates and delivers speed, quality, ease-of-use and the tools needed for options traders to succeed.

tradeMONSTER launched back in 2008 as a platform designed to complement optionMONSTER, a service that provides options education and market analysis. The broker was co-founded by Jon Najarian, Pete Najarian and Dirk Mueller, three pros who bring ample market experience and technology savviness to the table.

When conducting our review of tradeMONSTER, our primary goal was to find out whether the platform's feature-rich offering justified the expensive commission fees charged for trading options. 

Commissions & Fees

All stock trades are a flat rate of $7.50 per trade, regardless of order type, size and stock price. This flat-rate commission structure is less expensive than big brokers such as TD Ameritrade, ETRADE and OptionsXpress, however, it’s more expensive than discount competitors OptionsHouse and TradeKing. 

One fee that really stands out for trading equities at tradeMONSTER is the post-market hours trading fee. For any trades made in pre- or post-market hours trading, there is an additional charge of $.015 per share. This is a big deterrent for experienced investors, as most traders place trades at some point during pre- or post-hours.

For options trades, the broker charges $.50 per contract with a $12.50 minimum for single leg and $15.00 for multi-leg trades. This minimum is a pricey proposition for clients who only trade, on average, a few contracts each time. Out of the 17 brokers included in our 2013 Online Broker Review, only OptionsXpress had a higher fee for trading one contract.

Minimums aside though, once five contracts or more are being traded, tradeMONSTER's option commission structure quickly becomes a great value. Instead of being the most expensive for one contract, tradeMONSTER drops to seventh for five contracts. Trade 50 contracts and tradeMONSTER is the cheapest option available, next to competitor OptionsHouse.

	tradeMONSTER	OptionsHouse	optionsXpress	TD Ameritrade
Stock Trades	$7.50	$3.95	$8.95	$9.99
Options Base	$0.00	$8.50	$0.00	$9.99
Per Contract	$0.50	$0.15	$1.50	$0.75
Mutual Funds ($)	$15.00	$9.95	$9.95	$49.99
Broker Trades	$15.00	$3.95	$8.95	$44.99
Commissions, Fees

Lastly, in early 2013, tradeMONSTER updated its margin rates, raising them significantly from their originally low levels. The broker is still less than big brokers such as TD Ameritrade, however. 

Platforms & Tools, Research

tradeMONSTER offers both virtual trading and regular trading through its flagship web-based platform. One thing that becomes almost instantly apparent from using the platform is how smooth, easy-to-use and quick it is. For newer investors, there isn't a better platform to learn how to trade on.

Unfortunately, tradeMONSTER’s charting and research are both weak. While charts are very clean in appearance and support some nice functionality, such as notes and active order management alongside overlays, the availability of technical studies is weak (less than 30 when we counted). Furthermore, customizing the active studies was also a limited experience, unlike what can be found at heavy hitters like TradeStation or thinkorswim by TD Ameritrade.

Also, tradeMONSTER was not built with multi-monitor, hyperactive traders in mind. Trade hotkeys are limited, and the platform does not view well across several monitors. Windows can be popped out, but when you conduct analysis, they jump back to the other monitor and data filters back into the main platform window. 

As far as research goes, tradeMONSTER took a different approach from the norm for equities. Instead of providing everything under the sun, the broker offers their own Fundamental Report Cards for each stock that, in most cases, includes letter relative ratings. While we applaud tradeMONSTER for thinking outside the box, we found the data to be limiting, difficult to digest and confusing. 

Back to tools, options traders will quickly fall in love with the Snapshot Analysis offered for any option in consideration. 

If that wasn't good enough, tradeMONSTER then provides a Spectral Analysis, which includes all data needed to make an informed decision. Our favorite feature on this tab was Risk Metrics, which displays the option greeks. Since not all investors understand the greeks, tradeMONSTER has a simple pull-down menu to change from "Greek" to "English," making the data friendly for new investors. Awesome.

Once the investor is finished analyzing, he or she can quickly import the data into a fresh trade ticket, use the trade calculator to find the right position size, add optional notes and then place the trade.

Other Notes

tradeMONSTER has a lot of great assets to be proud of, unfortunately, customer service is not one of them. In our testing, the broker finished dead last, not only in phone support but also email support and overall support. Some emails went unanswered for days (one of which never received a response), and templates were poor. Phone reps were not helpful and failed to go above and beyond, in one call quoting us the wrong trade fee. 

In terms of education, we also were left disappointed. While the newly launched education center as of early January 2013 was an improvement over previous efforts, we found most of the content to be third-party sourced and put together with little effort. Considering the quality and offering of sister site optionMONSTER, tradeMONSTER should take a tip from TD Ameritrade, which migrated the content of Investools into the website education area.

Concluding Thoughts

Despite tradeMONSTER's shortcomings with customer service, research and education, the broker is fantastic for options trading. The platform runs with precision and offers the tools needed to succeed in the market. 

New investors may not like the $12.50 minimum per option trade, but the price is easily justified by the platform. Ease-of-use, trade analysis, notes and virtual trading make tradeMONSTER the No. 1 platform choice for new investors learning the game.

Looking ahead, with the staff of tech gurus tradeMONSTER has, we expect to see more platform innovations throughout 2013.