The Trade Ideas Story

The Back Story

Trade Ideas was founded in 2003 by a team of financial technology entrepreneurs who had already been leaders in the Self Directed Investment movement. Investors were looking to manage more of their own money instead of having other people do it for them for a fee.

Fueled in the 90’s by the overall technology boom of the Internet, online trading brokerages like E*Trade and TD Ameritrade allowed investors easy access to the market. Other types of brokerage firms sprung up to cater to the more active investor, sometimes known as the “Day Trader”. People looking at the market were desperate to find good stocks. The question is, how do you catch them, as they happen in real-time? The founders decided to call the new company Trade Ideas to distill it to the very basic essence of investing. Every investment first starts as an idea, and when it is placed, it becomes a trade. Hence the name Trade Ideas.

Why We Made Trade Ideas

Not our first rodeo! The founders of Trade Ideas were all coming off a big Venture Capitalist backed venture. This is known in Trade Ideas lore as the $50 million dollar education. In this prior company, the goal was raise money, raise money, and finally raise more money for growth. Board meetings, and more meetings, and planning and planning. Eventually, the founders of the company were kicked out. The company continued to lose money and dilute shareholders value and was eventually purchased by Interactive Brokers for pennies on the dollar. So what did the founders of Trade Ideas learn from this experience? Well they learned WHAT NOT TO DO! Don’t raise money, if it can be done. Make a profitable business, continue to grow that business slowly, and develop a technological advantage.

Trade Ideas Today

So what is this advantage that Trade Ideas brings to the table? Seventeen years of customized server-based technology designed from the ground up for one thing and one thing only. Real-time data.

All Trade Ideas technology is made from scratch by our own team of US developers. Our server farm connects directly to the Exchanges and we watch EVERY SINGLE STOCK and ETF that is traded. Every tick is watched by a system that measures behaviour against the past in real-time. Constant analysis and reanalysis. Testing and re-testing. This allows us to give Trade Ideas customers power that is UNMATCHED by any other vendor in financial technology. Investors have to see it to believe it, and once they catch on, they quickly realize that there is no substitute. That is why in 2021, Trade Ideas has for the 5th year in a row appeared in the Inc, 5000 Fastest Growing Privately Held Companies in the United States.

Why Use Trade Ideas

Changed the game! Trade Ideas not only allows you to see the data and the ideas in ways you have never seen before, it also allows you to learn how to manage your money. There is a rules-based visual TRADING PLAN in every chart, for long term as well as active traders. As the market evolves, the software adjusts levels and the trading plan evolves with the market.

Not only that, but you get to learn WITHOUT LOSING YOUR PRINCIPAL! This is done through a complete real-time simulated trading environment that is geared towards helping you see how to properly engage with the market and manage your profits and losses. Once you feel comfortable, Trade Ideas is ready to GO LIVE! We connect directly to online brokerages such as: Interactive Brokerage and Etrade, allowing investors to take their learned simulated knowledge and apply it to the real world in the EXACT SAME WAY, through Trade Ideas.