Thinkorswim Minimum Deposit (2024) (2024)

TOS / Thinkorswim minimum balance for a taxable account or a traditional/ROTH IRA. Thinkorswim minimum deposit (initial amount) to open an account and an account minimum requirements.

Thinkorswim Minimums

Thinkorswim is Charles Schwab’s flagship desktop trading platform. Thinkorswim is an amazingly powerful and feature-filled platform, but what minimums are required to qualify for and use the platform? We break down the answer to this question as well as other important minimums to know at Charles Schwab.

Thinkorswim Minimum Deposit

Charles Schwab has no minimum deposit amount required to open an account. You can open an account without putting any money into it and choose to fund the account at a later date. For depositing with an ACH transfer, you have to transfer at least $50. There is no minimum amount for depositing using a wire transfer, a check deposit, or transferring an account from another firm.

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Thinkorswim Minimum Balance Requirement

In general, Charles Schwab has no minimum balance requirements however, there are a few circ*mstances that do require a minimum balance. Just like at every other broker, if you want to be a day trader you need to have a minimum balance of $25,000. For margin accounts, you need to have a minimum balance of $2,000.

In general, getting approved for options trading with Charles Schwab doesn’t require a minimum balance however, there is a minimum marginable equity amount of $5,000 required to hold an uncovered short option position.

Charles Schwab has no minimum balance requirements to receive guidance from one of their Financial Consultants. You can receive a free planning session from one of their consultants either over the phone or in-person at one of their 200+ branches across the country.

Thinkorswim Account Minimums

There are no account minimums to qualify for any type of account with Charles Schwab. They don’t charge any fees for a low balance or inactivity in an account. Neither do they charge any annual or monthly account maintenance fees. Lastly, there are no account minimums to qualify for access to Thinkorswim and streaming market data inside of Thinkorswim.

Thinkorswim Minimum Investments

Fortunately, Charles Schwab does offer fractional share trading. Therefore, investing in stocks and ETFs does not require you to purchase a full-share amount. Charles Schwab has no investment minimums for mutual funds. However, many mutual funds do have investment minimums that are enforced by the funds themselves.

Thinkorswim Minimum System Requirements

For PC users using Charles Schwab’s website, they recommend using an operating system of Windows 7 or later and using the latest version of Google Chrome, Microsoft Edge, or Mozilla Firefox for your browser. For Mac users, Charles Schwab recommends using an operating system of Mac OS 10.11 or later and using Apple Safari 11 or later or the latest version of Chrome or Firefox for your browser.

To download and use the Thinkorswim desktop platform on PC, Charles Schwab has the following minimum system requirements: Windows 10 operating system, Intel Core i3+ processor, 8GB of RAM, 1GB of free space on your hard drive, and a minimum 1280x768 display resolution. For Mac users, all the same minimum system requirements apply except your operating system needs to be a minimum of Mac OS 10.11+.

There are no system requirements on your phone for using Charles Schwab’s mobile app other than having a smartphone with the available space to download the app.

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Overview of Charles Schwab Thinkorswim Platform

Charles Schwab customers get to buy and sell securities (and more) using the broker’s highly developed desktop software Thinkorswim. It is at a professional level, and is one of the most advanced platforms we have used. While it does take time to learn, it may be worth it if you’re looking for the investment world’s best tools.

Charles Schwab Thinkorswim Technical Requirements

Charles Schwab Thinkorswim uses Java 2, so you need to have that installed on your computer. The platform will run on Windows or Mac. For Windows users, the software requires at least XP SP3 and an Intel Atom processor of 1.6 GHz. One GB of RAM is required, and you need at least 50 MB of hard disk space. If you plan to use multiple charts simultaneously or use technical studies, you should have a more powerful machine than these minimum specs.

Mac users need to have at least 10.4.11 iOS and at least a PowerPC processor of 1.42 GHz. Charles Schwab Thinkorswim requires at least 2 GB of RAM for Mac users. Once again, if you plan to do complex charting, plan on having better specs than the minimums.

Charles Schwab Thinkorswim Pricing and Account Requirements

Despite Charles Schwab Thinkorswim’s complexity, Charles Schwab has managed to offer the software for free. There are no trading requirements or account minimums. Even traders without an account at Charles Schwab can download the software and try it out in demo mode at no charge.

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Charles Schwab Platform Margin Requirements

If you’re trading inside a Schwab's cash account, then obviously you don’t need to worry about margin. If you plan to borrow money from Charles Schwab to buy stocks, or if you plan to short stocks, then you’ll want to be aware of the broker’s margin policies.

Borrowing money inside a margin account currently costs 13.575%, a rather steep rate. This charge is applied to the first $10,000. Charles Schwab has a tiered margin schedule, which drops to 11.575% for loan balances above $999,999.

The initial margin requirement at Charles Schwab is 50% of an equity’s value, and the maintenance requirement is 30%. Some stocks have higher numbers.

Opening the Charles Schwab Platform

Charles Schwab Thinkorswim is launched from the desktop. Because it has a lot of powerful tools, it takes a while to load. Once you get to the login window, you’ll see a toggle switch that gives you two choices: Live Trading and Paper Money. The first option is for regular trading with real money, and the second is a simulated trading system with a fake currency. If you’ve never used the platform before, be sure to practice with it first.

Outline of the Charles Schwab Platform

By default, there’s a column of information on the left-hand side. Here, you’ll find account information (such as buying power), a watchlist, and various windows that can be switched from one tool to another. To do this, click on the plus sign in the lower-left corner. A pop-up window will display all the available choices, some of which are FX currency map, calculator, mine sweeper (yes, the video game), Trader TV, and Level II quotes.

The Second Half

To the right of this column is where all the action takes place. There is a top menu with several choices. “Monitor” displays working, filled, and cancelled orders. Next in line is “Trade.” As the name suggests, this is a good place to submit orders. Under the tab are choices for forex, futures, and pairs.

The next tab is “Analyze.” Here, you’ll find several security analysis tools. One is thinkBack, which is a backtesting tool. Another is Probability Analysis, which displays the likelihood in graph format of a security reaching a specific price by a certain date.

The next tab is “Scan.” Using the tools here, you’ll be able to search for securities by a wide variety of criteria. There’s a search engine for stocks and another for derivatives. There’s also something called Spread Hacker, which will deliver lots of multi-leg option trades.

Under “MarketWatch” you’ll find alerts and a very detailed market calendar. After this is “Charts,” which, as the name implies, is where the software’s graphing program sits. It’s very advanced with roughly 400 technical studies.

The charting section is also a good place to submit orders. With a right-click of the mouse, you’ll get a drop-down menu with several choices. These include both simple and complex orders.

The next tab is “Tools,” and here you’ll find on-demand videos from Reuters and CNBC. Also available is mytrade, which presents recent trades from other Charles Schwab clients.

There’s also an “Education” tab, which displays learning materials from the Charles Schwab website. We found videos on how to use Thinkorswim; so this section will definitely come in handy.

Finally, there’s a “Help” tab at the end of the menu. Here, you’ll find phone and fax numbers plus an email address that goes to a Thinkorswim help desk. There’s also a system menu that displays how much data, memory, and throughput Charles Schwab Thinkorswim is utilizing.

Customization

In the upper-right corner of the Charles Schwab Thinkorswim window you’ll see a “Setup” icon. This is where the software can be customized. A layout can be saved and used as the startup arrangement so that you get the saved layout when the platform launches.

Font sizes can be adjusted in this menu, hot keys can be set up, the background color can be changed, and the platform’s language can be switched to Chinese. If you have more than one Charles Schwab account, you can specify a default account.

If you want to change the colors of a graph, you’ll need to right-click anywhere on the chart and select “Style” and then “Settings....”

Customer Service

If you have any questions about Charles Schwab Thinkorswim (and you probably will; it’s a very complex program), Charles Schwab has added a contact icon in the top-right corner. Click on “Support/Chat” for several contact options, one of which is ‘Live Support.” This is an internal e-mail service that isn’t quite instantaneous. In a test run, it took us several minutes to get a response. But the service is there if you need it.

Thinkorswim minimum Judgment

Without any doubt, Charles Schwab has one of the best trading platforms in the industry.