Lightspeed Institutional supports professional traders, funds, institutions, and separately managed accounts by providing a complete suite of technology, Regulation T and portfolio margin leverage, access to our agency-only trade desk, as well as execution services. Offices are located in both New York and Chicago, and remote access to all products is available. The client experience perfectly balances robust and flexible technology solutions with focused, experienced, and high touch service.
The company definitely needs to improve its speed and make it paperless. Users opening an IRA account have to print PDF forms (and download a new version of Acrobat Reader if they don't have it), fill out the forms by hand, then mail them (there are no fax or email options). A non-IRA account is easy to open by simply filling out all the forms on the website.
Customers can open the following types of accounts: Individual, Joint, Option, Futures, Corporate, Partnership, Sub, LLC, Roth IRA and Traditional IRA.
Lightspeed Trading offers customers an ever changing number of trading platforms. All software offered at the company, except Lightspeed Web Trader, comes with a steep monthly price tag of at least $100.
• Lightspeed Trader is a direct market access trading system; fully customized; could trade equities, options and futures from one platform. It also offers hot-key and point-and-click trading. Charting is not as good as at the competitors. The price tag is $130 per month.
• RealTick Pro is a fully featured trading software for the professional traders that includes advanced order entry and trading with real-time global data; customizable user interface; hotkeys and hot buttons; ophisticated charting with studies, and streaming news. It costs $275 per month.
LightSpeed Pros
LightSpeed Cons
| Status | |
| Foundation Year | 2006 |
| License | |
| Trading Platforms | Lightspeed Trader, Lightspeed Gateway, Lightspeed Web Trader, Sterling Trader, Livevol X Options Trading, RealTick Pro and Express |
| Reliability Rate | A |
| Authorised Capital | |
| Brocker Fee | 4.50 |
| Exchange Fee | |
| Withdrawal Fee | |
| Minimum Deposit | 5000 |
| Phone: | 1-888-LSPD123 (577-3123), +1-646-393-4800 |
| Address: | New York Office 1001 Avenue of the Americas, 16th Floor New York, NY 10018 |
| Website: | https://www.lightspeed.com |
I had a great experience working with Dan Mullen at Lightspeed trading. He was prompt and efficient in answering all of my questions. If you're considering an active trading account, Lightspeed would be an excellent choice IMHO. I ended up choosing a different firm but if circumstances change, I'll reach out to Lightspeed again. P.S. I'm not a shill.
  Gambit   2016/10/10 12:31    
I been trading with Lightspeed number of years in stocks and options, I do have couple others as backup, but am happy with them, service a hell of lot better than IB, the times you don't need to speak to a human you seldom think about the emergency times you do.
  Handle123   2016/10/10 12:31    
Is Lightspeed owned by or affiliated with Steven Schonfeld or Schonfeld Group Holdings? I lost track. Thanks.
  Deuteronomy_24_7   2016/10/10 12:31    
Lightspeed trading(BD), Lightspeed trading platform and Sterling trader platform are all owned by PTS, professional trading systems. PTS might have done something with Schonfeld years ago. Not sure.
Deuteronomy_24_7 2016/10/10 12:31
I've used Lightspeed for a number of years and have had a great experience with them. They have an easy to use platform with fast execution. They are great if you trade mainstream stocks such as NYSE and NASDAQ listed stocks.
  Sjabs   2017/1/05 13:50