LightSpeed Trading Review

Lightspeed is an American stockbroker that’s great for skilled investors. It’s a top choice for people who trade stocks daily. In this review, we’ll look at what Lightspeed offers, its pros and cons, regulations, fees, account types, and learning materials. No matter how you found out about Lightspeed, you’ll learn everything you need to know to decide if it’s the right choice for your investments. 

🏢 Headquarters	1001 Avenue of the Americas, 16th Floor New York, United States
📅 Year founded	2001
🗺️ Regulation	SEC, SIPC, NFA, FINRA
💻 Trading platform:	Sterling Trader Pro, Livevol X, LS Trader, Eze EMS (Real Tisk) Pro, futures Platform, Derivix, Wex, SILEXX OEMS, CME Direct, CQG Integrated Client, Trading Technologies TT, Rithmic, Web & Mobile, CQG QTrader, CTS T4, Options City (VelA) Metro,
💰 Account currency:	USD (Possible to open a trading account in another currency for non-US residents)
📊 Accounts:	Individual Account, Joint Account, Trust Account, Retirement Account, Corporate Account, LLC Account, Partnership Account, and demo
💵 Withdrawal options:	Bank transfers, ACH, Check, ACAT
💵 Deposit options:	ACH electronic transfers, wire transfers, and account transfers
🚀 Minimum deposit:	$10000/ R160 000
⚖️ Leverage:	Margin trading available: 1:4 during the day and 1:2 at night
☪️ Islamic account (swap free)	No
🎮 Demo Account	Yes (a risk-free demo account)
💱 Spread:	From $2.50 per trade
🔧 Instruments:	Options, Stocks, Futures
📋 Orders execution:	No
☎ Customer Support:	Call: 24/7; Email
📚 Education	Yes

What is LightSpeed?

LightSpeed is a company that helps people invest money in the stock market. They don’t have investment programs; instead, users manage their own money and decide when to buy or sell stocks. They offer different options for how long you want your orders to stay active and allow you to choose from various types of trades. You can also create custom orders and repeat them easily. However, the trades aren’t automated.

Their popular desktop platform, LightSpeed Trader, lets you make all your trades. While it might not be the easiest to use, you can customize it to make trades quickly, including setting up shortcuts for fast trading.

You have many options for trading with LightSpeed, like using shortcuts to speed up sending your orders. Their main platform, LightSpeed Trader, is a desktop app that you can configure to always be on top.

If you want to trade options, you’ll need to use a separate platform called Livevol X, which has more options for evaluating and spreading your trades.

Fees

Lightspeed charges fees based on how much you trade. Unlike other brokers, they make you pay a commission fee. You can choose to pay per trade or per contract.

Account type	Spread (minimum value)	Withdrawal commission
Individual Account	From $2.50 per trade	$25 internal bank transfer, $50 external bank transfer, $25 check
Joint Account	From $2.50 per trade	$25 internal bank transfer, $50 external bank transfer, $25 check
Corporate Account	From $2.50 per trade	$25 internal bank transfer, $50 external bank transfer, $25 check
LLC Account	From $2.50 per trade	$25 internal bank transfer, $50 external bank transfer, $25 check
Partnership Account	From $2.50 per trade	$25 internal bank transfer, $50 external bank transfer, $25 check
Trust Account	From $2.50 per trade	$25 internal bank transfer, $50 external bank transfer, $25 check
Retirement Account	From $2.50 per trade	$25 internal bank transfer, $50 external bank transfer, $25 check

If you pick per trade, you’ll pay $2.50 if you make over 10,000 trades a month. The cost increases with more trades. If you make less than 250 trades, you’ll pay a flat fee of $4.40 for each stock or ETF trade.

If you choose per share, you’ll pay as low as $0.00010 per share with over 15,000,000 shares a month or up to $0.0045 with less than 249,900 shares. But there’s a minimum charge of $1 with the latter rate.

For options, it’s $0.20 per contract for most traders with over 100,000 contracts monthly. If you have less than 500 contracts, you’ll pay $0.60 per option.

Futures trading costs $1.29 per side. Futures options are $1.79 per contract.

Lightspeed is best for frequent traders because the more you trade, the less you pay. However, its fees on stocks and options aren’t as low as Firstrade.

There are additional charges with Lightspeed. For example, if you use Lightspeed Trader or Sterling Trader, there’s a minimum fee for orders below 100 shares, equal to 100 times the per-share rate.

On Lightspeed’s web and mobile apps, you must pay at least $4.50 for any options order. Per-share fees aren’t available on the browser or app.

There are minimum funding requirements for new accounts:

• $25,000 for Lightspeed Trader, Eze EMS, or Sterling Trader
• $10,000 for the browser-based platform
• $175,000 for margin traders

You can fund your account with a check, ACH, or wire transfer.

Pros and Cons

Pros	Cons
Lightspeed offers various trading platforms to suit different trader needs.	The minimum deposits required are expensive.
Traders can try out the broker’s trading conditions without risking money, using a virtual account.	There are no investment programs or other ways to earn passive income.
The company provides different types of trading accounts for various assets and ownership forms.	Clients are charged commissions by the broker for non-trading operations such as holding positions, closing accounts, and maintaining accounts.
Lightspeed customers can make extra money by joining the affiliate program.
Basic training materials for using Lightspeed platforms are available on the broker’s website.

Regulation and Security

FINRA and the SEC regulate Lightspeed. They make sure Lightspeed does what it’s supposed to for its clients. Lightspeed is also partnered with SIPC. SIPC protects up to $250,000 for Lightspeed clients in case the company goes bankrupt.

Is Lightspeed safe?

Lightspeed hasn’t had any data breaches lately. You can trust that Lightspeed is real and not a scam. The US Securities and Exchange Commission regulates it.

Leverage

At Lightspeed, day traders usually get 4:1 if they have $25,000. They can qualify for 6:1, but they need another account for that. It’s called the portfolio margin account and needs at least $175,000. Traders also need some experience to get this account. Overnight and day-trading positions have the same amount of leverage.

Account Types

Lightspeed provides these types of accounts:

• Individual account
• Joint account
• Traditional individual retirement accounts (IRAs)
• Roth IRAs
• Simplified employee pension (SEP) IRAs
• Corporate trading accounts
• Trust accounts
• Limited liability company (LLC) accounts for entity traders, not individuals.

Education

You can find lots of educational materials on Lightspeed’s website under “Resources.” They have a blog about trading different financial stuff. When we checked, we found info on arbitrage strategies and trading copper futures. There’s a glossary with words for day traders. They explain options strategies with pictures showing profit and loss.

Lightspeed’s site has videos on basic trading stuff like margin requirements and stock halts. They also have many YouTube videos teaching how to use Lightspeed Trader. Clients can join free live webinars too.

Customer Support

The broker gives you two numbers, one for help in your country and another for help worldwide. You can solve problems even when you’re not online. They have a FAQs section with answers to common questions. But they don’t have online chat or a callback option on their website.

Conclusion

Lightspeed is a great option for people who trade a lot of stocks, options, and futures. They have cool tools for trading and different ways to make orders. Their main platform, Lightspeed Trader, is easy to use and you can change it to fit your needs. They focus on giving investors access to the stock market. They have accounts where you can own different things and your orders get done quickly. However, Lightspeed isn’t great for everyone because it costs a lot to start and the prices are high for casual traders. 

FAQs

Who owns Lightspeed?

Lightspeed started as part of Lime Brokerage. Now, Lime Brokerage LLC is Lightspeed Financial Services Group LLC, based in New York City.

How much does Lightspeed cost?

Cost depends on how much you trade. If you meet monthly targets, you pay $0.001 per share and $2.50 per equity trade or $0.20 per options contract. If not, prices are higher: $0.0045 per share or $4.50 per trade for stocks and ETFs, and $0.60 per options contract.

What’s the minimum deposit for Lightspeed?

For web and mobile services, you need at least $10,000. For the Lightspeed software, it’s $25,000.