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Hey everyone. This is Kirk here again at optionalpha.com and welcome back to the daily call. Today, I want to answer another question from the community that came in and that is – “Which options broker should a newbie trader or newbie traders start with?” I think the simple answer here is there’s probably two really good brokers… Let’s say three brokers based on where you live in the world that you should start with. I generally think that the options market is getting more and more focused, meaning that I think that brokers are either choosing to make the decision to trade options and make a commitment in that space or not. We see this most often in some of these big brokers where they’re buying up in cases, these smaller option brokers that have been around for a while. They're getting engulfed by larger institutions mainly for the accounts that are in them because options traders are generally higher net worth individuals than traditional stock traders. And so, these larger institutions are buying up brokers because they want basically the customers, not necessarily because they want to make a commitment to the options trading platform or to those individuals. I think that’s the first thing you have to understand. In that same vein then, I think there’s probably three avenues that you could probably go, again, depending on where you live in the world. The first two are US-based companies, although they do have the capacity to trade some countries outside of the US if you're a non-US resident. But there's obviously Thinkorswim which is our original broker that we have been with for a long time. Probably, I would dare to say that we’re probably like under a hundred of the first people in the door. I mean, we really were… I signed up for them when they literally had like three web pages up, like three pages on their site. I’ve been with them for a very long time. Eventually, they got bought out by TD Ameritrade, so now it’s part of TD Ameritrade. But I really think that Thinkorswim was the original kind of like a MacDaddy platform for options trading. It really was something that was focused on options traders. It is an insanely powerful platform that is totally technology driven. At the same time, Thinkorswim’s platform can be incredibly overwhelming and it's like stepping into a jet engine cockpit when you've never flown anything before in your life. And so, there's lots of buttons and levers to push and you don’t want to push everything, but you do at the same time and so, I get that. We also have a course on our website that’ll be rolling out here shortly that allows you to go through the Thinkorswim platform and shows you how to set it up. Again, it’s all free, so you can just check it out on optionalpha.com. Thinkorswim is the first one. You can sign up for them at optionalpha.com/tos. That's the referral link that we have to them. I think they’re a good platform to start with for sure. It’s definitely something that I think you can start with, depending on what other accounts you need to move there and what other trading capacity you want. The technology is there, the commitment is there. I don’t think they’re going anywhere. The next one is obviously Tastyworks. I think Tastyworks, if you don’t already know about them or know where they drive from… But the original founders of Thinkorswim have kind of spun off and done their own thing with Tastyworks and developed their own broker platform. I have a good working relationship with them and the leaders there at Tastyworks. You can sign up for an account there at optionalpha.com/tastyworks, all one word and it’s the referral link for them. It saves you some money and just gives us a little bit of support on our end at Option Alpha. Tastyworks I think is more committed even so than Thinkorswim at this point to just being a platform for options traders. That's really the true, true focus of what they’re trying to do. Obviously, Thinkorswim is now engulfed in TD Ameritrade and they do a lot of stuff. They want to be a platform for everyone, I get that. Tastyworks I think is eventually going to be the platform for options traders, though I don’t think at least at the time of this recording as we’re closing down the 2017 year, I don't think that they have all of the features and technology available yet that they really want. I think that’s been a slower process in general and I know that it's rolling out because I continue to talk and keep the open lines of communication to find out what's coming in the pipeline, but I know that the technology is not quite there yet, but it will be. I think that the trajectory of where they’re at is obviously really good and the commissions are pretty much unbeatable. I mean, it’s like dollar contracts, no closing cost. It’s really, really good commissions to start out with. Not that you can’t get there with TD Ameritrade. It’s not what they published. TD Ameritrade publishes and Tastyworks publishes much higher commissions, but you can get them down pretty quickly. We’ve done podcast on how you can negotiate your commissions, so if you want to learn more about that, just go ahead and search that online. But I think that Tastyworks is definitely again, focusing and tailoring for options traders which is important because there’s a lot of innuendos and technology pieces that options traders need and that's what we’re trying to do here at Option Alpha too, is focus and tailor towards options traders specifically. The third one that I’ll mention I think probably obviously trails the first two for sure, but it’s really for people who are international who can’t trade on Tastyworks or on Thinkorswim and that’s Interactive Brokers. I think Interactive Brokers’ platform is really frankly terrible in most cases, but I think that it gives you the ability with cheap commissions and with access globally to trade the options markets in the US regardless of where you’re at. I know there are some countries that they still don't allow and you’ll have to check on their website because it always changes, but I think Interactive Brokers is probably the next best bet if you are trading internationally and that’s just like as a broad term because we’ve got people now from every continent in the world on Option Alpha, literally every continent. We have people that signed up a couple of months ago from Antarctica which is crazy that are down there on a military base. We’ve got people from every continent in the world and I think that Interactive Brokers facilitates most countries in the world and probably gives you again, the best access for the best price. I don’t think that their platform is great. I think it could be improved 1000 times over and I would love to go in there and help them out and improve that. If you’re listening from Interactive Brokers, let me know because I love to improve your platform and help you guys out, but it’s definitely something that’s a resource that you can use if you can’t trade in the US markets. Hopefully that helps out. Again, if you are trading and starting out, you can again, check out those two that I mentioned for the US companies, both Thinkorswim at optionalpha.com/tos and then Tastyworks at optionalpha.com/tastyworks. Until next time, happy trading!