Top 10 US Brokers for Day Trading

If you trade with day trading strategy, there are several things that must be considered. Here is a list of 10 top US brokers suitable for day traders.

As the name suggests, day trading refers to the practice of opening and closing trading positions within a single day before the market closed. It's easy to distinguish this type of trader from let's say, swing traders who can hold their position for several days or even weeks, or long-term traders who open their positions for several months or even years.

Day traders can open a few positions a day on different currency pairs relying on trading signals from technical indicators, price action, and fundamental news releases all at the same time. The time frame they usually use is usually between 15 minutes to one hour. With this distinct strategy, day traders tend to have their own criteria and specific needs when choosing a broker.

The following US forex brokers are highly recommended for you as day traders:

1. Interactive Brokers LLC
2. Thinkorswim
3. Lightspeed Trading
4. Advantage Futures
5. Options Xpress
6. TradeStation
7. OptionsHouse LLC
8. SpeedTrader
9. Infinity Futures
10. OANDA

There are a few main significant factors that are always considered by day traders in determining their choice of broker. In this article, we will break down the criteria of a good broker for day trading and explain why the brokers above could be included in the category.

Important Criteria for Day Traders

There are several factors to consider when choosing a broker for day trading. This is because day trading requires you to be responsive in identifying and seizing opportunities consistently. The frequency of trading is much higher compared to position trading or swing trading. Here are some criteria that should be present in your chosen broker.

• Commission Fee per Transaction: In choosing a broker, day traders would go for brokers that offer low commission fees. This might be beneficial for day traders to ensure more profit.
• The Quality of the Trading Platform: Day traders normally open and close positions at a high frequency, so the difference in order execution speed even in seconds will affect the price level of the order, which in turn will impact the amount of profit or loss that they will get.
• Customer Support: Sometimes, network disruption and other problems can happen even in the most trusted broker, so day traders need to be able to directly contact customer service to solve the issue.

The brokers that will be explained in the next section not only ensure the 3 main criteria for day trading but also provide more tools and other trading conditions to optimize day traders' strategies.

1. Interactive Brokers LLC

• Commission: 0.1 pips for currencies, $0 per share for US residents
• Trading platform(s): Trader Workstation (TWS), IBKR GlobalTrader, IBKR Mobile, IBKR EventTrader
• Customer support: Email, phone support, chat room, send documents, community forum, clients poll, etc.

Interactive Brokers LLC. is a financial service company that has been listed on the Nasdaq exchange (code: IBKR). This broker was founded in 1977 with a headquarter in Greenwich, Connecticut.

Today, this broker has been recognized globally and is widely used by hedge fund managers, professional traders, and large institutions. Several awards have also been attributed to Interactive Brokers for being the best broker in certain fields over the last few years.

The brokerage company uses Traders Workstation (TWS) as their main trading platform. It comes with trading tools required to do multi-layered trades and makes it easier to control your entry and exit, so you can minimize slippage and maximize speed. Such a feature would benefit day traders as they are typically required to be ready for quick changes in the market and are prone to execution problems.

Not only that, Interactive Brokers also provides a very low margin interest, which is excellent for day traders.

2. Thinkorswim (by TD Ameritrade)

• Commission: A $0.65 per contract fee applies for options trades. A $6.95 commission applies to trades of over-the-counter (OTC) stocks, which includes stocks not listed on a U.S. exchange.
• Trading platform(s): Web platform, thinkorswim web, thinkorswim desktop, thinkorswim mobile app.
• Customer support: Phone calls, Facebook Messenger, Twitter DM, fax, email, and mail.

Apart from being a broker, Thinkorswim also provides learning courses about investment. This company was first established in 1983 under the name Telescan, Inc. with a headquarter in New York and branches in Chicago, Draper, as well as Palo Alto.

Not only forex, but Thinkorswim also offers stock trading, options, and futures. The company provides a proprietary trading platform that is well known for its features, especially for technical analysis support.

Now when it comes to service variety, Thinkofswim presents one of the most accomplished trading services among other brokers. Some of the main benefits are access to the Federal Reserve Economic Data for free and other features that could allow day traders to customize their charts, perform backtesting, or receive constant updates.

Not only that, but this broker also provides a squawk box with live commentary for the S&P 500 index and the Chicago Board of Trade.

3. Lightspeed Trading

• Commission: Dicounted options commission at $0.60 per contract (with a $1 minimum).
• Trading platform(s): Eze EMS Pro, Eze EMS Express, Sterling Trader Pro, Sterling Vol Trader, SILEXX OEMS, Wex.
• Customer support: Email, phone call, scheduled phone call, FAQ, video tutorials, document center, face-to-face meeting.

Lightspeed Trading was founded in 2006, headquartered in New York City. They offer stocks, options, futures, and ETFs trading with customizable platforms.

There are many features that would be beneficial for US day traders such as low margin, educational resources, level II quotes, and direct access routing. The only real weakness is the fact that this broker enforces the SEC's pattern-day-trader rule which requires a minimum balance of $25,000 USD for day traders.

4. Advantage Futures

• Commission: Commissions and fees are based on trading volume and margin utilization.
• Trading platform(s): TT (Trading Technologies) web, app, desktop.
• Customer support: Email, phone call, market knowledge center, seminar center, economist series, industry insight series, etc.

Advantage Futures was established in 2004 in Chicago. This broker is widely known for futures trading. According to the official website, this broker requires a minimum deposit of $10,000 USD to open an account and accepts international clients (not only from the US).

One of the main advantages of day traders is supportive customer service. If you want to exit a trade, you can contact the 24-hour Global Execution Desk to execute the order immediately.

5. OptionsXpress

• Commission: If you execute fewer than 35 options trades during a quarter, then you pay $1.50 for each contract, with a minimum fee per trade of $14.95. If you execute more than 35 options trades during a quarter, then it will reduced to $1.25 and the minimum fee is lowered to $12.95.
• Trading platform(s): XTend.
• Customer support: Phone call, email, live chat.

OptionsXpress is a US-based broker that operates under the Charles Schwab Corporation and is headquartered in Chicago. This broker is suitable for traders looking to trade stocks, options, ETFs, and more.

OptionsXpress uses a free trading platform called Xtend that offers streaming quotes and market data, charts, scanners, time and sales, and advance orders.

Another feature that might be interesting for day traders is the Virtual Trading platform that provides real-time streaming charts which might be useful for practicing orders and fine-tuning your strategies without any risk to deal with.

6. TradeStation

• Commission: $0 trade commissions and a wide range of tradable securities, including cryptocurrencies.
• Trading platform(s): Desktop, Web Trading, mobile apps, Futures Plus, TSCrypto.
• Customer support: Virtual assistants, FAQ, support online forum, live chat, phone call, email.

Tradestation Group Inc. is a broker and software company for trading analysis. This broker was founded in 1982 under the name Omega Research Inc. and is headquartered in Plantation, Florida.

This broker offers stocks, forex, options, and futures products. Its trading platform is called TradeStation, which has received many awards for its complete analysis and automatic trading features suitable for day traders.

7. OptionsHouse LLC

• Commission: Fixed fee of $5 for up to five options contracts in a single-leg trade, additional contracts cost $1 each. And fixed fee of $8.50 for single-leg trades, plus $0.15 per contract.
• Trading platform(s): OptionsHouse Trading Platform, Trade Generator.
• Customer support: Phone call, email, etc.

Despite having merged with TradeMonster in 2014, this broker still keeps the original name, OptionsHouse. This broker offers options and stock products with a scanner feature on the trading platform that could help day traders finding a good trading opportunity in the market.

8. SpeedTrader

• Commission: Per-share commission starts at $0.0009/share.
• Trading platform(s): SpeedTrader Pro, SpeedTrader ActiveWeb, iSpeedTrader.
• Customer support: Phone call, live chat, email.

Living up to its name, SpeedTrader is superior in terms of speed. This broker provides a high-speed trading platform with large lot sizes (up to millions). The head office of this broker is located in New York.

For day traders, the main benefit that you can get is that this broker offers stocks and options at a fairly low commission.

9. Infinity Futures

• Commission: $2.25 per buy or sell contract (negotiable for active traders)
• Trading platform(s): InfinityAT.
• Customer support: Phone call, email, etc.

Infinity Futures was established in 1995 and headquartered in Chicago. At the moment, this broker only offers futures and options products with a trading platform called InfinityAT.

Day traders can get many advantages from this broker such as a stable and high-speed trading platform, low commissions, flexible leverage, weekly webinars, and phone support services.

10. OANDA Corporation

• Commission: The platform calculates the commissions based on your account type and the trade volume. The pricing starts from $0 and goes up to $50 in commissions per 1 million traded.
• Trading platform(s): OANDA Trade Web, mobile and tablet app, TradingView, MT4.
• Customer support: FAQ, OANDA Assistant, phone call, email, live chat, webinars, etc.

OANDA is globally recognized as a broker with a user-friendly web and low fees. This broker was founded in 1995 and is headquartered in Toronto, Canada.

Its main products are forex and financial market information services. OANDA has quite a few selections of trading platforms. One of them, fxTrade, is claimed to have high-speed execution which is important for day traders.

If you are a US day trader, the most familiar names out of the 10 brokers above may be Interactive Brokers and OANDA. Choosing a broker for day trading is a crucial step. With the right broker, you can take a step closer to advancing your day trading career and becoming a professional day trader.