I have twittered about this over the past week or so, but I am now officially moving over to ThinkOrSwim as my brokerage framework (I don’t like the “house” analogy when it comes to brokerage’s. It feels like more of a framework to me, especially with TOS, so that’s what I call it.). Its been a long road for me to get here, but I am excited about the move for my investments.

I started a brokerage account several years ago at Sharebuilder, which is an AWESOME low cost way of making value plays that aren’t in need of perfect timing. They offer a solution that allows you to make $4 trades on Tuesdays of every week, and they also offer a monthly subscription that gives you X amount of trades a month included. So if you are doing your homework and figuring out the plays the right way, you can drip in money at a discount through this program. It has served me well on not getting hammered on transaction costs. In short, I HIGHLY recommend it if it is going to be where you are starting out at with for value investments with smaller amounts of capital available. If you are like I am at this point in my investing habits, you will start to outgrow them for several reasons. They offer a limited amount of symbols that you can trade, and they don’t allow shorting of stocks.

About a year ago, while searching for a better alternative I started an account with Zecco.com. I wanted to manage making plays through my quantitative strategies that I am investing in with a partner. These were short term plays. I also use it to make some value plays. Let me just say that the platform is abysmal. There is a reason that they offer deeply discounted or free trades, because they aren’t putting time into polishing the tools for the end user. I will say they are making strides to improve this, but it still is tough to find things that I want, and I am always using other sites to help form the “big picture”, i.e. Google Finance, etc.

I can already tell that ThinkOrSwim.com is like stepping up to the big leagues. Their tool set is unmatched and it seems like they are actively adding value to this as evidence by snatching up my buddy Andy Swan’s company, MyTrade. That is what I want from a services company. I am willing to pay slightly higher transaction costs (and it isn’t much higher, they have a great pricing structure), if there is value in what they are providing for me. Pair that with them actively searching for companies to add to their tool portfolio and I am a happy investor.

So in several weeks, I am going to be an active trader with a brokerage company that is really adding value for the customer. If you look around this space for a place to park your money, you will quickly figure out that this is not the norm. Plus you get a free stuffed monkey.