How to Use Thinkorswim
To use thinkorswim, open the paper-trading mode first and build one workspace with only the windows you need — usually a chart, a watchlist and an order ticket. Save it as a named layout so the platform opens the same way every session.
The platform is unusually capable and unusually dense. Almost everyone who finds it frustrating is looking at the default workspace, which was assembled to display capability rather than to be worked in.
Before you start
A decision about whether you are using it for charts, for options, or for both. The options tools are its real advantage; the charting is good and not obviously better than the alternatives.
The paper-trading mode opened first, because the layout is learned faster with nothing at stake. Every window, ticket and shortcut behaves the same way there.
A written list of the two or three windows you actually need open. A chart, a watchlist, an order ticket. That is a working setup for most people.
The steps
1. Switch into the simulated mode before anything else
The account toggle sits at the top of the window. Everything works identically, which is what makes it a genuine learning environment rather than a demo.
2. Delete the default workspace and start from empty
The supplied layout has more panels than any one task needs. Removing them and adding three back is faster than trying to tidy what is there.
3. Set the chart up once and save it as a style
Timeframe, bar type, the one or two studies you have decided on. Saving it as a named style means every new chart opens correct rather than default.
4. Learn the order ticket on one simulated trade
Place it, attach a stop, modify it, cancel it. Doing all four once in simulation is worth more than reading about any of them.
5. Build one scan instead of using a separate screener
The scan tab filters the same universe on the same fields you would use elsewhere, and its output feeds straight into a watchlist without retyping anything.
6. Set the order defaults so size is never improvised
Default quantity, default order type, default duration. A default of 1 share is the useful setting, because it makes every real size a decision rather than an inherited number.
7. Save the workspace under a name and reopen it
Workspaces drift and updates reset things. A saved, named layout that you have reopened at least once is the only version you can rely on being there next month.
How to tell it worked
The workspace contains at most 3 windows, and you can say what each is for.
At least 1 simulated trade has been opened, modified and closed, so the ticket is familiar.
The layout has been saved and reloaded 1 time, which proves it will survive a restart.
And the default order quantity is 1, so no position size is ever inherited from a previous trade.
What the platform cannot do for you
It does not change the cost of a trade. On this site’s shared series a round trip measures about 2%
of the median bar range of 0.493 and exceeds 10 percent of the bar on 15 of 576 bars. The figures are in
research/series-measurements.json.
Depth of book and analytics do not make an illiquid instrument tradeable. They describe it in more detail, which is a different thing from making it fillable at your size.
What the options tools are actually for
The analyse tab prices a position before you own it. You can build a spread, move the expiry and see what the profit profile does, which is the single feature that justifies the platform’s complexity for most people who stay with it.
The chain displays every strike and expiry at once, and the density is the point rather than a flaw. Filtering it down to two expiries makes it readable.
Position statistics update live, which is useful and also the fastest way to start managing a position by watching a number rather than by following the plan it was opened under.
What the first week should actually contain
Day one is the order ticket and nothing else. Open a simulated position, attach a stop, move the stop, close half of it, close the rest. Five operations, all reversible, and they are the ones you will perform under time pressure later.
Day two is the chart style. Set the timeframe, the bar type and the one study you have decided on, then save it. Every chart opened after that inherits it.
Day three is the watchlist and the scan. Build one scan from a rule you already use and push its output into a list.
The rest of the week is repetition on the same three windows. The platform has hundreds of features and a working setup uses perhaps eight of them, which is the number worth learning properly rather than sampling widely.
The original data
Of the 24,971 unique videos in research/search-study-corpus.jsonl, 151 mention this platform in the
title, at a median of 15,024 views across 64 channels, and 72% of those titles are instruction-shaped.
One competing platform appears in 562 at 2,575. The counts come from site/corpus_count.py and
site/rank_howto.py.
151 videos at 15,024 against 562 at 2,575 for the better-known platform. A quarter of the coverage and six times the audience per video, which is what a harder subject with a more committed audience looks like.
The answer to the question on that chart is that a panel you never look at still costs attention. Every window is a place the eye goes during a decision, and the ones with no job are the ones that supply a reason to change the plan.
When it fails
The failure is learning the platform in a live account, and it costs money for reasons unrelated to the market. A mistyped quantity, an order type chosen from the wrong dropdown, a stop that attached to the wrong leg. Every one of those is free in the simulated mode and the simulated mode behaves identically, so the only thing gained by skipping it is the loss.
The second failure is keeping the default workspace. It was built to demonstrate, not to work in.
A third is not saving a named layout. Updates and drift both reset things.
A fourth is a default order quantity above 1. An inherited size is not a decision.
A fifth is managing an options position by watching live statistics. The plan was made beforehand.
And a sixth is treating depth-of-book detail as liquidity. More information about a thin market does not make it thicker.
Related
Chart reading covers what to look at once a chart is set up. Options explains the instrument that makes this platform worth learning. And paper trading is the mode every one of these steps should happen in first.
The mistake I made was treating the default workspace as a starting point rather than a demonstration. It is built to show what the platform can do, which is a different goal from showing what I need. Deleting every panel and adding three back took twenty minutes and made the platform usable.
— Michael Whitman
This page is educational, not financial advice. Test every idea on your own charts before risking money.