Stock Trading Grade: B
This is our review of the Schwab StreetSmart trading engine. For our review of the standard Schwab account trading engine click here.
Overview:
Schwab StreetSmart consists of two separate applications. The first, StreetSmart.com is web based while the second, StreetSmart Pro, is a downloadable application. Both offer a slightly better trading experience than the standard Schwab trading application. Most prominent is the addition of trailing stop loss orders.
Order Types:
See our Order Types page for an explanation of order types
Market
Limit
Stop
Stop Limit
Trailing Stop Loss $
Trailing Stop Loss %
Details:
Let's start by going through the steps to execute a trade in StreetSmart.com and then we will do the same thing in StreetSmart Pro.
StreetSmart.com
I selected to buy 10 shares of Toyota (TM) at a limit price of $86.50. I also selected good til canceled (GTC) designation, which keeps the trade in Schwab's system for 60 calendar days (click on images for larger views):
A pop-up menu asked me to confirm my order:
Once my order was accepted, I checked the status at the order status screen:
From this menu, trades can be modified or canceled before execution. Both canceling and modifying trades works well.
I decided to let my trade go through. Once the market opened and my trade executed, my position appeared in the positions screen. I decided to sell my position so I clicked on the row from the positions screen and selected trade:
This brought up the trading screen and populated the symbol but did not populate the action or the number of shares, which is a convenient feature found at many other brokers.
StreetSmart Pro
I selected to buy 5 shares of AstraZeneca (AZN) at a limit price of $46.75. I also selected good til canceled (GTC) designation, which keeps the trade in Schwab's system for 60 calendar days (click on images for larger views):
A new window appeared asking for me to verify my order:
A window popped up which presented me with warning messages. I find this window to be an unnecessary nuisance. I decided to ignore the warning messages and placed the order:
Once my order was accepted, I checked the status at the order status window:
From this window, trades can be modified or canceled before execution. Both canceling and modifying trades works well.
I decided to let my trade go through. Once the market opened and my trade executed, my position appeared in the account details window under the positions tab. I decided to sell my position so I right clicked on my position and selected close:
This brought up the order execution window with the symbol, action and quantity auto-populated. This is well done, especially compared to how StreetSmart.com handles this activity.
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