Hello Profit.ly!

 

I am a fairly new trader. I have been studying the DVDs and trading with Robinhood. I have managed to make fairly decent gains for a small portfolio.

 

I am ready to put some real money into a brokerage account. I am considering splitting this into at least 2 different accounts though. I will have about $15k to deposit. My reasoning is this:

1) I will have more day trades. This will allow me to close positions quickly without the worry of running out of day trades so quickly.

2) I may be able to find shares to short on one broker, but not the other.

3) I am planning on using ThinkorSwim and Etrade.

 

My concerns are:

1) This may be too much to track in the beginning. More complicated. Which may invite mistakes.

2) While I have spent a lot of time using ThinkorSwim and paper trading with them, I have not spent much time with the Etrade platform. Also, with their pro platform, I need to either pay about $90 a month for it, or make at least 30 trades a quarter.

3) I am not sure how to split the funds. I was thinking $10k into ThinkorSwim (because I am familiar with the platform) and $5k into Etrade.

 

Any thoughts on this? Any advice that one can give? Perhaps from your own experiences? Should I consider other brokers? I looked at Interactive Broker, but it is somewhat complicated, and when trading large numbers of shares it gets more expensive rather than cheaper. And I usually trade penny stocks and buy a few thousand shares at times.

 

Thank you for your help!