hey guys, any advice for a beginner on how to choose a trading platform? also, do you use analysis provided by the platform you use or you look for external sources as well?
Hey. Those are for profit organizations and especially ,,bucket shops" have an interest of you trading as much as you can, because each order of yours is a profit for them, through commisions, spread and some low quality product like a ,,CFD". Thus i never did and never would do. Go for the biggest platforms like IBKR or ThinkOrSwim. Then you got plenty, of smaller brokers as well. Just make sure that they are regulated by US or EU and not by some Cyprus Security Exchange Commision.
What type of trading are you planning to do? What type of analysis? For day trades, I would suggest that you open an account at a reputable company such as E*Trade, Fidelity, IBKR, Schwab, etc. You can always open additional accounts in the future.
What markets do you want to trade? How big is your account going to be? How many hours a day do you have free to study trading?
TD Ameritrade's Thinkorswim is fantastic for stocks and options. If you're going to trade futures with any kind of volume, though, I'd look into a specialized broker like Tradovate, AMP, Optimus, etc. You will save a boatload of money on commissions.
It all depends on what type of trader you are (eg. scalper, day trader, swing trader, etc) and what instrument you trade (eg. stocks, options, bonds, futures, crypto, forex) as well as what you base your trading decision on (eg. chart, DOM, Level2, etc).