thinkorswim

thinkorswim (recently acquired by Charles Schwab during the massive TD Ameritrade buyout) is the absolute gold standard for complex retail Options Trading in the United States. While TWS is brutal and intimidating, thinkorswim manages to offer terrifyingly complex analytical tools wrapped in an interface that is actually highly intuitive and beloved by its fanatic user base. It completely dominates the "Technical Analysis" sector. It offers over 400 built-in technical studies. More importantly, it features "thinkScript," a relatively simple, proprietary coding language. A retail trader can write a highly specific script: "Alert me if Apple's 50-day moving average crosses the 200-day moving average, but only if trading volume is 20% higher than normal." It is also highly famous for "PaperMoney." This is an incredibly realistic, live-market simulator. A brand-new trader gets $100,000 in fake money, but the software uses the exact same live market data, allowing them to test terrifyingly risky options strategies for six months without ever risking a dime of real capital, making it a massive educational tool.