How To Trade With Ameritrade

A trading platform is software that day traders and other investors use to trade stocks and securities. Traders can use it to open market positions in a particular security and manage that market position as the price goes up or down. 

There are tons of competing software platforms out there, with Ameritrade being one of the better ones out on the World Wide Web.

Ameritrade is very popular with institutional investors, but it is not quite as fast or customizable as the typical day trader might like. 

Lots of platforms out on the market include market analysis tools and research capabilities, but sometimes the quality of those tools are irrelevant to day traders if the trades are not executed fast enough.

Ameritrade’s Thinkorswim Platform

Ameritrade’s Thinkorswim platform does offer quality market analysis features that allow traders to try to anticipate what is happening and what a trade might do. 

Those features are useful for risk modeling and learning as much as you can about a potential trade. And the Thinkorswim platform has made strides recently in order to add more hotkeys and make trading quicker and easier for day traders. 

And Thinkorswim has made it simpler for traders to customize their platform and share that with other traders. Another Ameritrade feature is a day trading community that shares watch lists and tips for trading stocks.

Paper Trading Situations

No matter what platform you use when you are out in the real market, it makes sense for aspiring day traders to practice in paper trading situations. Paper trading is a way for learning traders to work in a simulated environment that allows them to trade virtual currency and not make a real mistake with real money. 

The benefits of getting screen time and understanding risk management when you are trading fake money are valuable.

Ameritrade’s Thinkorswim platform offers a similar feature that allows you to game out one trade at a time, with is very helpful for real-time risk analysis. 

But when day traders are fresh out of classes and just learning to implement strategies, the potential for mistakes is high. Which is why you want to test out your skills on paper trading software for at least a month at first.

Risk Management

Risk management is such an important part of being a day trader. You have to have a plan for each and every trade when you go into the day. 

There is no winging it. When you go into a trade without a plan or you abandon the plan the chances of the trade losing money are huge. And losing money is not the name of the game.

When you day trade, whether is on Ameritrade or on another platform, you are always searching for home runs, but ready and willing to eke out singles and doubles. 

Small wins, made consistently, are the way to get financially independent when you are day trading. Ameritrade can help you with the research and the risk analysis, but the trades are all up to you.