We love giving customers the features and functionality they want.
And today is one of those days. We have made some changes to our Watchlist feature that will allow you to interact with your Watchlists and other “list” components (Sector Monitor, Index Monitor, and Hotlist) in a different, more efficient, streamlined way.
From now on, you can trade directly from the Watchlist. Whether you’re trying to simply buy or sell stock or generate an advanced order, you can do so by simply clicking on the symbol in the Watchlist:
Not only that, you can send a quote for that symbol to the universal quote line at the top of the platform. If any components are linked to that top line (such as the option chain), then you’ll see an option chain load up for that symbol.
With these new changes, these components will have a cleaner feel that should make them easier to use.
But wait—there’s more!
We’re also bringing a new level of customization to the platform to the following components:
- Positions
- Orders
- Watchlist
- Hotlist
- Index Monitor
- Sector Monitor
We’re enabling a new feature that will make these components completely customizable. The new functionality includes:
- The ability to pick from a variety of columns to display the data you want
- Drag and drop columns where you want them
These features allow you to set up each component to show the exact data you want to see in the order you want to see it.
All you have to do is hover over the column headers and select the columns you want to see:
So if you want to see the high and low for a stock in your Watchlist, you can do that. Maybe you’d like to show the days to expiration of a position in your positions pane? You can do that too.
It’s all about exposing the information you want and hiding the rest.
Take a look at the new features, play around with them, and let us know what you think. Oh, and if you want to go back to the default column setting, you can always click on “Restore Defaults” and everything will go back to normal.
About 18 months ago – On October 20, 2009, to be specific – I 
When the Chicago Board Options Exchange (CBOE) initiated options trading in 1973, options were available on exactly 16 stocks. These days, there are more than 3,000 stocks, indexes, and exchange-traded funds (ETFs) with available options. Option traders surveying the options-investing landscape enjoy increasing variety and diversity.
When you think of stocks, you probably think of buy, sell, or hold when it comes to your investing choices.
So if yesterday’s ADP report didn’t take the jam out of your doughnut, tomorrow’s job report just may. I wrote 
The S&P 500 Index has been chugging along to the upside since hitting its most recent low of 1,042 on June 8. At the time, that low was exactly at the lower two-standard-deviation Bollinger band, possibly indicative of an oversold condition. As of Tuesday’s close, we were trading in the middle of these bands.
Any successful trader or business man (woman), knows that planning ahead and preparing for upcoming events and potential threats to your investments is key to preventing catastrophe. The first thing every investor needs to do is to maintain a general awareness of upcoming events that are already announced. In a world full of uncertainty, at least we get to know a little bit about the future. First off, major economic data coming up this week includes:
As everyone knows, most investors continue to use stocks (as opposed to options) for their primary investment tool. Although options volume continues to grow each year, there are still a lot of people who do not understand what all the fuss is about. Well hopefully, I can give you a quick rundown of the reasons investors should be versed in both stock and options strategies. By “versed,” I mean educated in how options work and the potential benefits (and risks) they provide when used correctly. I do not mean, “just try and figure it out by making real trades without knowing what you are doing.”
It’s the broken record that we traders love to play again and again. While the process is the same, the outcome is almost always different. Earnings season is often a catalyst for change in a stock’s direction, volatility, and even sentiment. It can also simply accelerate a trajectory or cause a stock to do nothing at all, but regardless, just about every investor needs to be hyper-aware of earnings dates, especially the ones that involve your stocks or their peers.
