The OptionsHouse layout impressed me, I liked how the options pricing guide was laid out with both calls/puts and for every month on one single screen, also you can trade directly from that screen. Very nice.

Now for my experience with OptionsHouse..

I opened a margin account with them 1 month ago with $3,000 to get a feel for the trading platform. On the application to open the account, it specifically asks what you
are going to trade, I put spreads/credit spreads, however when I got my account
cleared and funded I went to make my first trade and a error box came up and said my
account is not allowed to trade at that trading level. Keep in mind I have been trading options, spreads, credit spreads for years with OX. I then presented my case to their team for account approval and they said they would NOT upgrade my account trading level to trade a credit spread and that I could re-apply in 90 days. So now at this point, I was getting a little anxious and I sent a message to their customer service team and said basically this is what happened, I am very disappointed and this is what I want Ect…if I cannot get access to trade a protected spread with limited risk I need to cancel my account. I waited a few days for them to respond back to me and they never did, I just checked my bank account and they direct deposited all my money back to my bank account and that was it…there was no, we are sorry blah blah blah, nothing! I guess they do not like business and making money, now I understand $3k is not a whole lot of money however there would have been a lot more in there within the year. I would not recommend OptionsHouse to anyone due to their customer service.

If someone has some insight about my experience and has an explanation why I was treated the way I was, that would be great. My OptionsXpress account allows me to trade credit spreads, iron condors, Ect… I guess I will put some money back with them…however I wish their rates would go down.

Read more: http://www.theoptionsinsider.com/forum/posts.asp?page=2&id=193#ixzz0hucUwajX
The Options Insider: Your Inside Source For Options Information

Many thanks,

Shannon Paul
Community Manager
PEAK6 Online, parent company of OptionsHouse

Now I can’t get their MAXIT software to show what is a REALIZED GAIN and what is an UNREALIZED GAIN on 5 of my positions. I’ve had options expire worthless over a month ago, and it still shows as an unrealized gain. Better yet, I’ve emailed about this twice and all I get is a standard answer like “I’ve sent this to the Maxit department”.

The shame of it is that Options House has a lot to like about it in other areas. They have a nice layout of options prices which displays all of the call/puts prices on one page for a given security. They also seem to try to have good CSR in many instances.

On the other hand, if you’re primarily trading options, you should probably log into another broker at the same time for getting options data, because optionshouse does not provide realtime streaming options quotes. They currently only update option quotes every 5 seconds (which can sometimes make a huge difference when the activity on the underlying you’re trading is in the middle of some explosive activity). There’s a refresh button you can manually click on both the option chain screen and the actual order ticket screen, but after testing this for several days and talking to some of their reps, the refresh button does not update the bid/ask quotes any faster than the broker’s 5 second intervals. There’s also no level 2 data available, and if you want to see the last price that an option traded for, you have to add that strike price to your watchlist, since the option chain screen on optionshouse currently does not show you the last trade price. I discovered that you can also enter the option symbol into optionshouse’s streaming charts tool to see the last price and the high/low for the day on an option, but the thing about that is, optionshouse does not have option symbols listed anywhere on their platform, so you’ll have to get the symbols elsewhere.

While those drawbacks to using this broker might sound annoying to very active traders, don’t forget that options trades only cost you $9.95 here, regardless of the number of contracts. If you log into another broker for your realtime option data and level 2, while taking advantage of the optionshouse commission rate for placing the trades, you’re golden.

I just wanted to let you know that we lifted the $100 reserve requirement on all our accounts after careful consideration and input from customers like you. This change has actually been effective for more than a week. Thanks again for the feedback and please do feel free to keep in touch and let me know if you have any questions.

All the best,
Shannon Paul
Communications Manager
PEAK6 Online – Parent company of OptionsHouse
spaul[at]peak6[dot]com

So if I’m planning on opening an account, sounds like I better have an extra $100 ready to donate

Thanks so much for your patience. I understand your frustration and appreciate the time you took to evaluate our platform and share your experience with others.

For a little bit of background on this issue, we originally instituted this policy to keep a balance of $100 in each account mainly to cover small margin calls that can be associated with large-volume option trading since, historically, this has been our core customer base. However, as we continue to grow, we are attracting a wider range of investors with different sets of needs so feedback like this is very helpful as we evaluate our policies to match the demands of a more diverse customer base.

Please know we are looking into the best possible way to move forward with regard to this policy and that it is in no way intended to punish our customers. While we need to consider what will be best for all our customers, I will do my best to make sure the issues you raise here are addressed as we move forward.

In the meantime, please feel free to reach out with any questions or additional concerns.

Thanks again,

Shannon Paul
Communications Manager
OptionsHouse/PEAK6 Online
spaul[at]peak6[dot]com

Then again, it probably explains why I’ve never heard of them until now.