Active Traders are Hungry for Broker Education

Citing high demand for education, online brokers are offering live Webinars and in-person training days on options trading and technical analysis. TD Ameritrade recently finished a six-week night school program on technical analysis and then a second round of classes on options. The night courses are archived online and can be viewed at a later date. In addition to live Webcasts, TD Ameritrade also does in-person seminars, according to Jay Pestrichelli, managing director of TD Amertitrade's Active Trader Group. "We go to about 200 cities throughout the year and have classes on risk management and options strategies, says Pestrichelli.

Earlier in the decade, online brokers were focused on performance and came out with sub-10 second execution guarantees and then that went down to one-to-two seconds. "Everybody worked on the speed and quality of their executions," says Christopher Larkin VP of retail brokerage at E*Trade. Now online brokers like E*Trade are focused on education and trading tools. "We've become more of a partner in educating our customers," says Larkin,. "If you look back to the 90s and early 2000s, online brokers put up education because they were obligated to," says Larkin. Now, "We're investing a lot in that particular area," suggests Larkins.

E*Trade also offers in-person seminars and trading education days, and goes to the major cities and pulls in about 300 customers for a free education day. Generally, the online broker partners with the exchanges, and brings in someone from CBOE or ISE. Recently, it ran a Webcast through Yahoo and was able to quadruple its audience, says Larkin.

Similarly, Charles Schwab supports learning opportunities for traders, conducting about 2000 workshops across its 300 branches each year. It also delivers about 750 online, live workshops per year, where traders can learn about advanced technical analysis, how to use StreetSmart Pro— its customizable trading platform — and risk management techniques. All of this is available in streaming video from the Schwab Web site. Regional trading forums, which are full-day educational events, are conducted in markets throughout the year, where it brings in Schwab experts and third parties with experience in trading and investing. These multi-track full-day events get anywhere from 400-to- 600 customers and include one hour workshops on topics like spread trading or call writing, how to use trailing stops, and "what's a methodology I can use to protect myself from losses," says Rich Levine, VP of Charles Schwab Active Trading Services.

One such event is coming up on Sat., Sept. 20th, at the Sheraton Meadowlands in New Jersey and is geared to Schwab's active trader clients as well as investor clients. Levine says it's hard to find hotels that can accommodate these size crowds.

Ivy is Editor-at-Large for Advanced Trading and Wall Street & Technology. Ivy is responsible for writing in-depth feature articles, daily blogs and news articles with a focus on automated trading in the capital markets. As an industry expert, Ivy has reported on a myriad ... View Full Bio