The LSE Directory / CFD and forex brokers
tastytrade is a US self-directed online brokerage, operated by tastytrade, Inc., a FINRA and NFA member and SIPC member broker-dealer. It offers trading in US-listed stocks and ETFs, single and multi-leg equity, ETF and index options, futures and options on futures, and cryptocurrency, executed through desktop, web and mobile platforms. Stock and ETF trades are commission-free, options open at $1 per contract capped at $10 per leg with no fee to close, and futures open and close at $1 per contract ($0.75 for micro futures). Forex trading is offered through a separate but commonly owned affiliate, tastyfx LLC, and the platform also lists CFTC-regulated prediction-market event contracts spanning commodities, crypto, economics and financial outcomes. The firm specialises in options and futures trading for active, self-directed retail traders rather than passive or buy-and-hold investors; its flat, capped per-contract pricing is built around frequent, multi-leg options strategies rather than the plain single-stock trading most low-cost brokers emphasise. Its tools include a Strategy Builder with preset multi-leg options strategies, a backtesting engine drawing on more than a decade of historical options data, and a portfolio-level risk analysis tool for stress-testing positions; the platform was built by the same trading and technology team behind the earlier thinkorswim brokerage. Cryptocurrency trading and custody run through Zero Hash LLC rather than tastytrade itself, and crypto holdings carry no SIPC or FDIC protection. tastytrade traces to 2011, when options trader Tom Sosnoff, together with Kristi Ross and Scott Sheridan, launched tastytrade as a daily financial-education broadcast network in Chicago; Sosnoff had earlier co-founded the online brokerage thinkorswim in 1999 and sold it to TD Ameritrade in 2009. The same team launched a companion brokerage, tastyworks, in January 2017. In January 2021, UK-listed IG Group Holdings plc agreed to acquire tastytrade for $1 billion ($300 million cash plus 61 million new IG shares), completing the deal in June 2021 when the brokerage had more than 105,000 active accounts; Sosnoff, Ross, Sheridan and Linwood Ma joined IG's senior leadership. In February 2023 the brokerage, tastyworks, was renamed tastytrade, while the original media network was renamed tastylive, splitting the tastytrade brand between the IG-owned broker-dealer and its affiliated education and content business. Under IG Group ownership tastytrade has become the group's fastest-growing unit: it posted record net trading revenue of $50.9 million for the quarter ended February 28, 2025, up 30% year on year, and IG Group has continued to report double-digit annual growth in tastytrade's active customers and trading revenue through 2025. In March 2025 the firm expanded its crypto offering beyond Bitcoin and Ethereum to include Solana, Cardano, Chainlink, Avalanche and other tokens, still custodied through Zero Hash.
