So, there are education offerings sprinkled throughout the TD Ameritrade website, mobile app, and thinkorswim platform. How’s a trader or investor to find/sort/make sense of them all?
Education is invaluable, essential, and useful, which makes it an ideal gift for anyone. TD Ameritrade has taken its educational offerings to the next level. We’ve integrated our educational tools and are offering them to all TD Ameritrade clients, and the best part is, it’s free. There are so many education resources that can be accessed from all the products we offer: tdameritrade.com, the thinkorswim® platform, our mobile apps, YouTube … we even have a TD Ameritrade chatbot on Facebook Messenger and a chatbot on Twitter. Yep, there’s something for everyone, from stock market beginners to seasoned veterans looking for advanced investor education.
To help make sense of it all, start off with what level of trader you are, what products you want to trade, and how much time you want to commit. Want to learn to trade stocks or ETFs? We’ve got that. Want to learn about option strategies or fixed income? We’ve got that, too. Are webcasts your thing? Or perhaps you prefer a more traditional approach, like an online course for your trading education. Maybe you’d like to attend a live event. You’ve got many alternatives (see figure 1). Once you’ve seen them all, you can chart out your personalized course of action. There’s no better way to get acquainted with these tools than to dive in.
FIGURE 1: EDUCATION CHOICES.
From the Education tab you can access all your educational tools—courses, in-person events, webcasts. Image source: The thinkorswim platform from TD Ameritrade. For illustrative purposes only. Past performance does not guarantee future results.
The courses include basics and advanced products, so you can start at the beginning and enhance your skills by following a specific curriculum. And you can learn at your own pace. There are short videos that last a few minutes, and courses that take hours or days to complete. It all depends on how much binge watching you can handle.
And have you noticed the new Education tab on thinkorswim? It’s the newest of the many ways you can access educational content. Click on the tab and bam! You’ll see the offerings—live events, webcasts, and free courses in various categories: options, fundamental and technical analysis, portfolio management, income investing, and more.
When you select a course, you’ll get a snapshot of its length, the trading style it’s suitable for, and the experience level required. After each lesson, take the quiz at the end to see if you learned anything. If you did, move on to the next one—your progress is tracked and visible on the dashboard (figure 2). If not, you can repeat the lesson.
FIGURE 2: DASHBOARD.
The dashboard lets you keep track of your progress so you stay on course. Image source: The thinkorswim platform from TD Ameritrade. For illustrative purposes only. Past performance does not guarantee future results.
Besides online courses, you can look through upcoming live events. Maybe there’s one scheduled in your area that you could attend. It’s a great way to meet likeminded people. And there are webcasts, which cover a myriad of topics: from how to trade stocks, to options strategies, to portfolio construction and management.
So whether it’s the weekend, after the close, or when you have downtime during the trading day, sit back and enjoy your educational journey. You’ve got the tools you need, right at your fingertips. We want you to become an empowered trader.
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