Lightspeed Review: A Day Trading Stock Broker

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Lightspeed Review
  • Customer Service
  • Commission Fees
  • Trading Platforms
  • Research Tools
4.4

Are you an active trader who simply doesn’t find that his platform can keep up with him? If so, you are in luck since Lightspeed is here to cover your needs. This is one of the rare online services that don’t really care about catering to new traders. Instead, they want to focus on those with experience and will to keep trading. A new user will definitely find it to be overwhelming.

Not to mention that the term “active trading” is taken to the extreme with this service. A lot of customers easily reach over a thousand trades each year. So, if you are on the lookout for a fast service with low prices, do not pass this platform up.

Lightspeed Fees and Commissions

Everything about this platform gears towards overly active trading styles and commissions are no different. There are two different paying plans for you to choose. You can either go with the one that will cost you per share or the one per trade. And do take a moment to consider which plan you will choose as it can make a big difference over thousands of trades. If you choose to pay per share, it will cost you less than half a cent per share of equity trades (0.0045 dollars). So, if you are making a lot of smaller orders, this might be the way to go. However, if you plan on making large orders, you should choose to pay per trade. In this case, every trade will cost you 4.5 dollars. And, if you want to trade options, they will cost you 60 cents per contract. However, the cost will go down the more trades you make during the month.Lightspeed

Lightspeed Platforms and Tools

While using Lightspeed you can opt for one of the several platforms they offer. Since Lightspeed is a daughter company of Professional Trading Solutions (PTS), they offer 3 platforms that belong to PTS. So, you can choose between Sterling Trader, Lightspeed Web Trader, and Lightspeed Trader.

You should bear in mind that, of these three, only the Lightspeed Web Trader is free for you to use. If you want to use one of the other two it is going to cost you 100 dollars per month. However, we would also like to mention that your commissions will deduce from the cost. So, if you end up paying 70 dollars in a month for commissions, the platform will only cost you $30. You can also go with one of the numerous third-party platforms. However, for the review, we will, of course, focus on their own, flagship, platform – Lightspeed Trader.

The first thing we are sure anyone will notice is that this is not a pretty platform. In fact, you can tell that no effort went into the aesthetic design of it. However, everything is extremely functional. The platform is designed for stable and swift execution of orders. As we said, a beginner in trading will probably find this platform to be a bit too much. However, someone with a lot of experience will not require more than minutes to figure how everything works, down to customizing your hotkeys. 

And when we say this platform is fast, we mean it. The data comes directly from the exchanges giving you live feed that follows the real world in milliseconds. However, if you decide to switch your style up a little, you will see several flaws. The charting feature is decent, but the tools for analysis could definitely use an improvement. In the end, the platform does what it does best – allows you to trade quickly and efficiently.

Mobile ApplicationLightspeed-mobile

Lightspeed also offers a mobile app for Android and Apple smartphones. The first thing we feel we have to mention is that it connects to Lightspeed Web Trader, instead of their flagship platform. However, they did promise to expand the app soon. The app’s focus is on helping you trade quickly while you are not on your computer. You will mostly just have the essential features. This includes basic watchlists, charts, real-time streaming, and the order window. It is worth mentioning that the app is still very new and that they promise to improve it over time. However, as it stands right now, it definitely needs those enhancements sooner rather than later.

Is Lightspeed Right For You?

This is one of the very few platforms that don’t want to get the attention of new traders, and for a reason. They are entirely geared towards experienced traders who enjoy the hyperactive lifestyle. And the platform that they offer really helps with it. And, by placing enough orders per month the platform might just end up being completely free. So, if you consider yourself to be an active member of the trading community this service is probably perfect for you.

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