I think this fact is little known, but at Schwab, Etrade, and Fidelity if you are an active option seller you can buy 1 to 6 month treasuries and get paid around 4.25%+ and the amount you buy is still 90%+ (some slightly higher than others) marginable. In a $100,000 account you are getting paid at least $350 a month in interest and you can use $90,000 to $95,000 of the value as margin (with no margin fee). Obviously, you will need to leave some cash to cover any losses you may realize.
November 16, 2007 at 7:18 pm
I like TradeStations’ terms better. Plus, if you leave at least $30K in your account, you can daytrade to your heart’s content. Also, the TradeStation platform blows away Schwab, E-Trade, and Fidelity.
However, Tradestation has been known to give some crappy fills.
Jeff
November 17, 2007 at 11:45 pm
I do like the TradeStation terms. I like the idea of selling puts across 5 to 10 (or maybe more) names and staying close to having them fully cash covered. With the TradeStation $1 per contract (and no other fee) it makes it possible and affordable to not only have 1 to 5 contract positions, but there is no penalty for scaling into a 5 lot 1 or 2 at a time.
I agree the platform itself is better than Schwab’s StreetSmart Pro and certainly has more features than E*Trade and Fidelity’s (I have only seen the Fidelity platform(s) on a colleagues desk). Having said all that, I really do respect E*Trade for providing a cross-platform version (Java WebStart based).
Best.