At TradeStation they believe in empowering traders to claim their financial edge. Whether you are new to trading or a seasoned professional, through a full suite of powerful trading technology, online brokerage services, and trading education, they are committed to empowering you to unlock your trading and investor potential. Trade stocks, ETFs, futures, or options with reliable execution on powerful platforms, broad market access, and competitive pricing models. At TradeStation, traders and investors have the tools to compete in numerous markets, the data to test and optimize their strategies, and the community to share their knowledge and learn new skills.

TradeStation has a robust platform that allows you to earn in many ways.  You can earn through trading:

• Stocks
• ETFs
• Options
• Futures
• Bonds
• Mutual Funds

TradeStation also has an IPO trading platform that allows you to potentially invest in an IPO before it is fully available on the public market. You can also earn on your stocks by lending them out.

TradeStation offers commission free trading.  They make money in several different ways:

1. Paid Subscriptions: TradeStation has many different subscriptions available. They offer an institutional plan, TradeStation Analytics starting at $99 per month, and several more subscription offerings.
2. Rebates from market makers and trading venues: Market makers (typically big institutions/funds) buy directly through the brokers to have discounted purchases. For that ability, the market makers pay a rebate to the brokerage to receive their orders . The brokerage sends your orders to the market maker that is most likely to execute at the best price for you and makes a few cents on each trade.
3. Income generated from cash: They borrow the cash sitting in your account and invest it into interest earning accounts and keep the profit.
4. Margin Lending: They collect interest on money they lend to investors.
5. Stock loan income from counterparties: They receive interest for loaning out shares for short sales.
6. Fees: Other fees may apply such as options trading fees, futures trading fees, and service fees

TradeStation has been around for four decades now, and is know to be an extremely stable and reliable platform. They do not disclose information about their total assets under management, but some estimates place the number at $10 billion.

At TradeStation, protecting the safety and security of your accounts and identity is of the utmost importance. As your partner in online security, they leverage their technologies and operational best practices in order to keep your valuable accounts and private information safe. 

As of September 30, 2019, TradeStation Securities, Inc. had approximately $1.45 billion of customer funds reserved and segregated in bank accounts clearly identified as customer funds in accordance with Rule 15c3-3. The amount required to be segregated is computed weekly. As an additional safety precaution, TradeStation maintains funds in excess of the required amount to be segregated from its own proprietary funds. Your TradeStation equities accounts are further protected with SIPC insurance. SIPC insures your equities accounts up to $500,000, including $250,000 for cash. Beyond this, TradeStation has arranged for additional protection through Lloyd’s of London, insuring each account up to $24.5 million, subject to a $900,000 per account maximum for cash, with an aggregate firm limit of $300 million.