Benable — create shareable lists of things you recommend!
E.g., products you love, local businesses, travel recs - you can add anything to a Benable list!
The tools I use to trade options for a living
12
items I quit my job in 2024 to trade options and derivatives full time, and I've been writing about it on Medium ever since. These are the platforms and data sources I actually open every week, not a list of what's trending. Everything here I've used long ...
Sections
3
Broker and execution
Research and analysis
Free tools I use every week
Broker and execution
Three brokers, and which one suits you comes down mostly to where you live and how much interface pain you'll tolerate for lower fees. I place everything through IBKR myself, but I wouldn't hand it to someone who has never sold an option before.
A newer options platform aimed at people who find IBKR's interface punishing. Currently only available to UK residents. Full disclosure, I'm an investor in the company via Crowdcube, which is exactly why I rate it. I put money in because I think reta...
Investa
The broker I've used for years across options and stocks. Fees are low and you get proper options chain data rather than the watered down retail version. The platform looks like it was designed in 2004 and the first week is genuinely painful, but not...
Interactive Brokers
Worth a look if you're in the UK and want something less punishing than IBKR to start on. Cleaner interface, and the barrier to getting your first trade placed is much lower. I use this personally for managing my stocks & shares ISA.
Webull
Research and analysis
Charting on one side, fundamentals and analyst opinion on the other. I use both before placing anything, since a setup that looks clean on the chart is still a bad trade if the business underneath it is falling apart.
I've had an account here for years and it's where all my technical analysis happens before I place a trade. Runs in a browser on any machine with nothing to install, and the charting is better than what most brokers bolt onto their platforms. The fre...
TradingView
Where I do my stock analysis. The value is in the quant grades and the fact that you get bulls and bears arguing over the same name in one place, which beats any single analyst view. I moved to it and dropped what I was using before, and I haven't go...
Seeking Alpha
What I use for fundamental analysis. Detailed financials, analyst estimates, call transcripts and ownership data all in one place. I've been running it on the pro plan but even the free membership covers more than you'd expect for nothing. The screen...
TIKR
Free tools I use every week
Nothing here costs anything, and I'd argue a couple of these are more useful than some of the paid tools above. This is where most of my ideas start, and where I check whether there's a macro event that means I shouldn't be trading at all that day.
I check their economic calendar before making trades. If there's a Fed decision, CPI, PPI or NFP that day, I don't place the trade at all. Sitting out those days has done more for my win rate than any indicator I've ever tested, and it costs nothing.
TRADING ECONOMICS
My personal stock analyst. I built a Claude project that runs deep analysis on companies before I commit capital, and I've written up how I did it on Medium. It won't hand you a thesis and anyone claiming otherwise is selling something, but it's very...
Claude
Where I follow independent thought leaders in the investing space. Better signal-to-noise than financial media, and half my stock ideas start as something a writer here flagged that I then went and verified myself. Some of my favourite writers that I...
Substack
r/options, r/stocks, r/daytrading and yes, r/wallstreetbets. Not for trade ideas. It's how I get a read on retail sentiment around a name, and r/options in particular is genuinely useful for the mechanics that catch people out, like early assignment.
Reddit
Where I go for options data without needing a brokerage account open. IV rank, unusual options activity, most active options, a screener and pages for individual strategies like covered calls and bull put spreads. Worth knowing the options data runs ...
Barchart
The calendar I check before selling any put or call a month or more out. If earnings falls inside the expiry window, I either move the expiry or pick a different name, because an earnings gap is exactly the kind of move that turns a quiet income trad...
Earnings Whispers