Online Broker Review

Updated Saturday, October 8, 2011

Android App Grade: B

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Note: This Android app was tested on the HTC myTouch 4G handset

Overview:

The optionsXpress Android app is one of the top mobile trading platforms. Viewing account balances and positions is simple if not fully featured. Quote pages and market news are limited but the charts are quite impressive. The included tools such as The Dragon and the Reversals Screener are interesting, though we think they could be implemented slightly better. The ability to execute multi leg options orders such as spreads and straddles makes the optionsXpress platform one of the best Android apps for options traders. Stock trading is handled equally well. The optionsXpress Android app is among a few of the top mobile trading platforms.

Android Market Facts:

App Name: optionsXpress
Version: 1.6.5
Requires: Android version 1.6 and up
App Size: 820k
User Rating: 4 / 5 stars

Details:

Upon launching the optionsXpress Android app, users are prompted to enter their login information before continuing. Many other Android apps allow access to general features, such as quotes and charts, without logging in first so it would be nice if the optionsXpress app offered this as well. Thankfully, sessions are saved for a brief period of time, which allows for multitasking.

The main app menu consists of 14 items. Some of the major menu choices are described below.

Balances
The Balances menu allows users to check their account balance, buying power, margin requirements and holdings by category.

Positions
Positions shows a list of account holdings.

Watchlist
Watchlists are user customizable lists of securities shown with their latest bid and ask prices. Select an item in a watch list to bring up the quotes menu for that security. Here is a watch list that we created with some popular oil company stocks (click on images for larger views):

Quotes
The quotes menu displays basic stock and index price information such as last price, daily percent change, volume and 52 week range. Much of this information is not populated outside of market hours which we find to be very poor functionality. Here is the quote page for the 3M Company (MMM):

Global Markets
The Global Markets section contains current prices and daily percent changes for a selection of international indices:

Gainers & Losers
The Gainers & Losers menu shows the top 15 and bottom 15 stocks according to their daily percentage change. Select any stock to bring up the detailed quote page for that security.

The Dragon
The Dragon is an optionsXpress proprietary tool that in their own words, "is designed to assist you in finding unique trading opportunities. Whether it's volume, volatility or open interest, The Dragon quickly identifies matching stocks and their options." Basically, The Dragon is a slickly designed stock, ETF and options screener. Here are the results returned by searching for stocks with high open interest:

From this menu we selected Citigroup (C) which brought up a detailed page showing various pricing information. The Dragon is a glorified stock screener but nevertheless, we think it is a worthwhile tool:

Reversals Screener
The Reversals Screener displays those stocks that have had the most number of bullish or bearish technical events trigger during the most recent trading day. The screener can be filtered by the type of event (bullish, bearish or mixed). Users can also search any stock symbol to view the bullish and bearish events that apply to that security.

Here are the results that we retrieved listing those stocks with the most number of bullish technical events:

From these results, we selected Prologic SBI (PLD) which brought up a description of the nine bullish technical events applicable to this stock:

This is an interesting tool but it would be a lot more useful if accompanying charts were provided that showed the technical events.

Charts
The optionsXpress Android app has one of the best charting platforms among all broker apps. Charts can be displayed for time periods of intraday, 3m, 6m, 1y and 2y. Plot styles available include area, line, open / high / low / close and candlestick. 21 technical indicators are also available, including moving averages, bollinger bands and parabolic SAR. Here is a look at a 3 month candle stick chart for Cisco (CSCO):

If you turn the phone into landscape mode you can view larger charts. Here is a three month candlestick chart shown in landscape mode:

News
The Market News menu contains small news blurbs provided by MarketWatch. There are much better apps available to keep up with market news.

Stock Trading
To trade stocks, select Trade from the main menu which brings up the combined stock and options trade ticket. Order types available are market, limit, stop loss, stop limit and market on close. This is reduced from the optionsXpress full web based stock trading platform, which also offers trailing stops and conditional orders.

We selected to buy 10 shares of Apple (AAPL) at a limit price of $350.00 with an expiration of good until canceled. OptionsXpress does not disclose how long good until canceled orders are maintained in their system before they are purged. When everything looked correct we selected the Preview button:

This loaded the trade confirmation screen. We then selected the Confirm button which then generated a message stating that the order was placed successfully.

Open orders can be modified or canceled from the View Orders menu, with both actions working as expected. Once orders execute, new holdings can be viewable from within the Positions menu. Selecting a position loads a detailed position page where there is a menu option to easily close out the position. This is good functionality.

Options Trading
To trade options, select Trade from the main menu, which brings up the combined stock and options trade ticket. Enter the underlying stock symbol and then select Option to bring up the contract selection menu. Alternatively, users can view detailed options chains from the main menu. Selecting any of the contracts loads the trade ticket with that particular contract selected. We selected to buy 1 AAPL JUNE $345 Call with a limit price of $5.50 and an expiration of Good Until Canceled (GTC). OptionsXpress does not disclose how long good until canceled orders are maintained in their system before they are purged:

Advanced options orders such as covered calls and married puts as well as multi leg options orders, including spreads, straddles, strangles and combos can also be executed from this same menu. This is still limited compared the full optionsXpress web trading platform, and does not include 3+ leg orders such as butterflies and condors.

As with stocks, open options orders can be modified or canceled from the View Orders menu, with both actions working as expected. Once orders execute, new holdings can be viewable from within the Positions menu. Selecting a position loads a detailed position page where there is a menu option to easily close out the position. This is good functionality.

optionsXpress Android App