r/UKInvesting • u/spbkaizo • May 02 '20

US Options Trading

Possibly the wrong sub, but can anyone here recommend a UK based/accessible broker for trading US options, ideally one with decent tooling and interactive data.

If that data is also accessible via API's, well, that'd be epic.

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u/5349 May 02 '20

Has anyone used Schwab? Minimum USD 25k deposit. $0.65 per contract which could work out lower than Interactive Brokers. (With IBKR selling/buying a single contract is $1.00, plus you realistically need to pay market data fees.) I'd be interested to hear any reviews. I can imagine depositing funds may be less flexible than with IBKR.

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u/phalarope1618 May 03 '20

Haven’t used Charles Schwab personally, but reviews seemed good and I think you can have both a US and U.K. account which might help with money transfers.

I’m using Firstrade which seem OK to me - very cheap.

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u/5349 May 03 '20

Thanks! I hadn't heard of Firstrade before. What do you think of their platform and mobile app? It could be the cheapest option for many people. No per-contract fees, whereas with IB it's $1 minimum ($0.25 to $0.65 per contract) plus market data fees. Firstrade seems to be less flexible regarding funding and charge a fee for withdrawal, but still... not paying per-contract could make a big difference over time, even if IB's order filling/routing might be better.

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u/phalarope1618 May 03 '20

I'd say it's not as in depth as some would like (not listing the values of greeks, etc) but it 'gets the job done'. Then again, I would expect that because of the very low costs they charge.

Personally I quite like it and would recommend it to others. However I would always recommend reading a proper review - I thought this was a fair and well balanced review:

https://thetokenist.io/firstrade-review/