Lightspeed Trader Platform Tutorial Course
This LightSpeed Trader Platform Tutorial Course goes step by step into how to set up your LightSpeed Platform. They have one of the best day trading platforms in the industry. They also have very high execution speeds on trades, which is critical for a day trader. There are a lot of customized features available with their platform as well. This course will help you set up their platform as quickly and simply as possible. You’ll also gain access to our other trading courses as well.
Bullish Bears Members Discounts
Bullish Bears Members Promo: Use promo code BULLISHBEAR
Receive:
Commissions – $3.00 per trade or $.003 per share/$0.50 min.
Options – $0.30 per contract
$5,000 minimum deposit (cash accounts only, web/mobile platform only)
$10,000 minimum deposit (NPDT or cash accounts, eligible for LightSpeed Trader)
For more information on opening a demo account or opening an account with LightSpeed please contact Rob Livson at rlivson@lightspeed.com
Regular Commissions and Fees
Commission and routing fees are a big deal when choosing a trading broker. This is a competitive market space with many brokers offering commission-free trading. Zero-commission brokers are great. I mean, who doesn’t like not having to pay for any trades they make, right?! But what does this cost you, the trader?
If you don’t get quick order fills at the best price, then does free trading benefit you? You get what you pay for when it comes to a trading broker. The big-name free commissions brokers are great for casual trading or options trading, but not so much for day trading.
The big-name day trading brokers such as Lightspeed, SpeedTrader, and Centerpoint all charge fees for a reason. It’s because of their reliability and order executions. If you are going to be day trading consistently, you will have to get used to paying commission fees and accurate feeds for market data.
Lightspeed offers two commission tiers. Per trade and shares. They are on the higher side when it comes to commission structure, but they are competitive.
Order Execution
Lightspeed is among the best brokers in the industry for lightning-fast order executions which are great for day traders. Order fills, and speed is critical when day trading. You want to get in and out of a trade quickly while getting the best fills. Some minor slippage could mean the difference between a winning or losing trade, which could cost you thousands of dollars per year.
Brokers such as TD Ameritrade or E-Trade are enticing new day traders because of their low fees and alluring charting platforms, but they aren’t designed for day traders regarding order executions. Also, they don’t have as good of montage window customization when placing trades. Those platforms are more cumbersome. TD Ameritrade makes it more difficult when it comes to placing limit orders. When you click on their “Trade” tab, the charts get taken over entirely by the trade screen, which is terrible when trying to make split-second trading decisions.
The great news is that the Lightspeed Trader platform takes away all this pain with its highly customizable montage windows. You can place orders without having your charts hijacked, allowing you to be completely focused when trading. We will show you this live in our Lightspeed tutorial course.
Charting
Having a good charting platform is important when day trading—price action is key when making split-second trading decisions. Candlesticks are the most important trading indicator, which means that you need to have good charts to look at when entering and exiting a trade.
TD Ameritrade’s ThinkorSwim platform is the pinnacle when it comes to chart. We agree that the ThinkorSwim platform has the best charts, but LS is not too far behind. LS is so much better than Interactive Brokers and SpeedTrader. SpeedTrader uses the Das Platform, and their charts are sub-par. IB’s charts are just awful.
We would say that LS’s is a bit below ThinkorSwim and above the other brokers, which makes them solid overall when trading. You don’t need another charting platform to trade, which is great. Plus, their montage is customizable for charts, and their zoom feature helps get a clean look at the charts.
It’s relatively easy to get your charts set up with LS. You can also layer on indicators as well. Once you get your layout the way that you want it, make sure to save it. Opening and saving layouts are easy to do. You can customize different layouts based on different trading styles and easily interchange them.
Indicators
Indicators are very important when it comes to a trading platform. This is where the importance of a solid charting platform comes in. It would be best to see the indicators clearly on a chart, especially regarding day trading. Speed and accuracy are also critical. If the indicators are seconds off compared to other platforms, this could mess up your trading.
The good news is that the Lightspeed Trader platform has great indicators. They are the same ones that you’d use with other day trading brokers. Studies include simple moving average, exponential moving average, volume weighted average price (vwap), Bollinger bands, relative strength index (rsi), MACD, Fibonacci retracement, and more.
What’s nice is how clean the indicators look on LS charts. They are as good as the ThinkorSwim platform. If you compare them to the Das Trader platform, it’s almost night and day how they look. DAS charting looks like they are stuck in the 80s or 90s, which is a bit frustrating.
Paper Trading
Lightspeed has a great paper trading platform and gives you a demo to get started. If you go to their website,e you can try a demo before you fund an account. We’d like to suggest doing this. It will help you get their platform’s feel before trading with real money. ThinkorSwim has one of the best paper trading platforms in the industry, but LS is neck and neck with them, and they are much better for day trading.
We’ve had experience using several brokers, and LS is far easier to set up than other brokers. Interactive Brokers were a nightmare to set up, and you had to hunt around to get answers. Their customer service was also sub-par. TD Ameritrade has a great paper trading platform with endless features, but it is cumbersome and difficult to set up.
It only took us an hour or two to get our Lightspeed platform set up, and we didn’t have to search endlessly for Lightspeed tutorials on how to get started. They also have quick tutorial videos on their website that get right to the point, which is very helpful. We did the same in our Lightspeed tutorial course. Also, check out our Lightspeed Review.
Paper trading is a great way to get a feel of how the LS platform works in the real world. Just be aware that it is a paper trading platform, and order fills might be slower in live market action, but not by much. Again, their order execution speeds are impressive. So, we encourage you to get your platform up the way you’d like it in live market action, then practice making a few hundred trades before trading with real money.
Customer Service
We have high standards when it comes to customer service since we’ve used and currently still use other brokers in our trading community. Again, we use TD Ameritrade as the pinnacle of customer service. We’ve called TD hundreds of times, and their customer service is top-notch.
Interactive Broker’s customer service is so-so. You get what you need to be done, but sometimes they are rude or abrasive. They seem to want to get you off the phone.
Speed Trader’s customer service is great, but they rely on DasTrader’s platform. Das Trader is not very fun for customer service and tech support questions or issues. Not sure if they have made improvements to their tech support over the past few years, but they were awful and very rude when we reached out to them several times in the past to get our platform set up. They seem to live in the past with their platform and don’t act open to updates and feedback.
Lightspeed, on the other hand, has very good customer service. We’ve contacted them several times, and they are very helpful. Then again, you don’t need to reach out to them much because their platform is very easy to use, and they have simple tutorials to answer the most pressing questions.
FAQ
How Much Does Lightspeed Trading Cost?
- Lightspeed trading has per-share or trade pricing
- $0.0010: over 15,000,000 shares
- $0.0015: over 6,000,000 shares
- $0.0020: over 3,000,000 shares
- $0.0025: over 1,000,000 shares
- $0.0035: over 250,000 shares
- $0.0045: under 249,999 shares ($1 min)
- $2.50 per trade: over 10,000 trades
- $2.75 per trade: over 3,000 trades
- $3.00 per trade: over 1500 trades
- $3.50 per trade: over 750 trades
- $4.00 per trade: over 250 trades
- $4.50 per trade: under 250 trades
Is Lightspeed Trading Safe and Legit?
Lightspeed is a top-notch broker for trading. The Lightspeed Trader platform is one of the best in the industry for day trading and options. Their order executions are lightning-fast, and montage creation is completely customizable and simple. Getting started is easy, and their customer service is great if you have any questions. There are a lot of brokers out there in the industry. Many have complex layouts and sub-par charting capabilities; some still look stuck in the 90s with their software but not Lightspeed. They have a sleek and modern-looking platform that puts them ahead of the curve of other brokers.
We have used many different brokers in our trading community, but LightSpeed has to be right at the top. It’s our favorite broker by far when it comes to day trading. We love how interactive, quick, customizable, and easy their platform is to use. You don’t need another charting platform because their charts are top-notch.
What Platform Does Lightspeed Trader Use?
Lightspeed has its flagship trading platform called Lightspeed Trader. It’s a solid platform for trading both stocks and options. Sterling Trader Pro can be used instead of their platform if you’d prefer. The Lightspeed Trader platform is tailor-made for day traders looking for fast real-time quotes and fast order executions.
Is Lightspeed Trader Platform Good for Shorting?
The Lightspeed Trader platform is great for shorts. Just look for the green letter E on level 2. They have good short locates if the stock isn’t easy to borrow. Just submit your short request, and they will return quickly with the cost if the shares can be borrowed.
To see if shares are available to short, type the stock symbol into level 2. E: means that the stock is Easy to Borrow. T: means Threshold and can’t be shorted. L: this means that the stock might be able to be borrowed but needs to be located through the Short Request Form.
