The awards season for brokerage firms wrapped up last week, and once again, tastytrade earned several honors.

Best online broker for options trading

Forbes listed tastytrade among its Best Online Brokers of October 2023, as well as the best for options traders. Forbes Advisor ranked tastytrade 3.9 out of 5 stars. The Forbes editorial team determines the rank based on the range of fees, features and tools an online broker offers on platform.

Forbes wrote that “tastytrade (formerly known as tastyworks) was co-created and founded by Tom Sosnoff, the legendary options trader and fintech pioneer, and it shows in the creative innovations in the platform. Sosnoff is the original creator of the thinkorswim platform before moving on to create his next generation platform at tastytrade. The user-centric brokerage platform combines low commissions, cutting-edge technology and unique resources for self-directed options, equities and futures traders.

“Tastytrade offers competitive pricing and fees, including commissions on equity option trades that are capped at $10 per leg. It also offers commission-free trading in stocks and ETFs and one of the lowest commission rates for futures in our survey.”

Forbes noted that while testing the quality of customer service at tastytrade, researchers were pleasantly surprised to receive replies from Nick Battista. Nick, tastylive director of market intelligence, appears Monday-Friday on Options Trading Concepts Live.

Best online brokers for futures

USA Today chose tastytrade as one of the Best Online Brokers for Futures in October 2023. The site gave tastyrade a Blueprint Rating of 4.4 out of 5.

The news outlet noted that tastyrade is an excellent platform choice for futures traders because users can “apply for futures trading privileges, typically approved within one to two business days. Once enabled, you can access various futures contracts—including energy, metals, agriculture, volatility, livestock, cryptocurrency, indexes, currencies, and interest rates—available on the desktop, mobile or web-based platform.”

USA Today said it bases its rankings on factors such as fees, trading platform capabilities, customer service and educational resources.

Best brokers for fractional sharing

As Bankrate notes, more online brokers have recently rushed to provide new features to their clients, which includes being able to invest in fractions of a share. The feature “allows investors to purchase a stock or ETF with almost any amount of money rather than needing to have enough cash to buy a full share.”

Bankrate chose tastytrade as one of the Best Brokers for Fractional Sharing because the platform appeals to both short-term and long-term traders and investors. Other platforms listed included Charles Schwab, Fidelity Investments and TD Ameritrade.

Kendall Polidori is an associate editor at Luckbox magazine