CenterPoint Securities Review

CenterPoint Securities is one of the most popular brokers for short-selling, with an incredible short-selling inventory.

By Alexander Voigt | Updated July 22, 2023

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CenterPoint Securities is one of the best day trading platforms with Level 2, charting, custom order routing and one of the most complete short sale inventories. This CenterPoint Securities review provides insights about the company, trading platform, pricing and features.

Best in class day trading Broker: Cobra Trading – Please consider reading our Cobra Trading review to learn why it is the best broker for active traders.

Table of Contents

About CenterPoint Securities

CenterPoint Securities is a U.S.-based day trading broker and division of Clear Street LLC., a brokerage firm regulated by FINRA and approved in April 2018.

CenterPoint has been serving active traders since 2012 and was founded by a group of traders. Over 100 developers, engineers, 20+ customer support agents, and 20+ securities lending specialists ensure that traders get what they seek.

CenterPoint Securities has two offices from coast-to-coast – one in San Diego, California, and one in New York.

Trading Platforms and Tools

CenterPoint Securities offers three different trading platforms:

CenterPoint Pro
CenterPoint Web
iDASTrader App

CenterPoint Pro

CenterPoint Pro is a day trading platform with real-time Level II market data, advanced charting, custom alerts, customizable order entries, hotkey trading and a white-labeled version of DAS Trader Pro.

Benefits include 40+ order routes, a built-in short locator, stock screeners, times & sales windows, charting and a simulated trading module.

CenterPoint Web

CenterPoint Web is the web-based version of CenterPoint Pro with similar functionalities and streaming real-time data.

The HTML5 web version supports direct market access routing, various stop-loss types, and real-time account management.

iDASTrader

The iDASTrader mobile trading app is available for iOS and Android and is mainly designed to help day traders to monitor and close open positions.

Account Types

CenterPoint offers individual, corporate, and joint accounts with a minimum account deposit of $30,000. All opened accounts are margin day trading accounts with intraday leverage of 4:1 and overnight leverage of 2:1, with Clear Street as clearing firm.

Tradeable Markets

Centerpoint clients can trade U.S.-listed stocks and options via Nasdaq, NYSE, and various ECNs like BATS and ARCA.

Short Locates and Borrow Lists

The short-sell inventory is one of the most extensive ones, with an easy-to-borrow list of about 8,000 stock symbols.

Commissions and Fees

CenterPoint has cost-effective commission rates, low order minimums, and a high discount for high-volume traders.

Equities Commissions and Fees

The equity commission for day traders with a monthly trade volume of less than 500k shares is $0.003 per share with a minimum order fee of $0.30.

The more shares are traded per month, the lower the commission fees:

500k-1M shares per month: $0.0025 per share ($0.25 minimum per order)
1M-5M shares per month: $0.0020 per share ($0.20 minimum per order)
5M-10M shares per month: $0.0015 per share ($0.15 minimum per order)
10M-100M shares per month: $0.0010 per share ($0.10 minimum per order)

Besides the commissions mentioned above, routing and regulatory fees get charged. The routing fees depend on if liquidity is taken or added, ranging from getting a credit of $0.002 to paying a fee of up to $0.004 per share.

The regulatory fee is $0.00004 per share to NSCC, $0.00002290 SEC fees for closing transactions per share and TAF fees of $0.000119 per share.

Example: A trader who trades between 500k and 1 million shares per month buys 1,000 shares of Apple via the ARCA route with a market order.

Commissions buy transaction: 1,000*$0.0025 = $2.5
Routing fees: 1,000*$0.002 = $2.0
Regulatory fees: 1,000 * $0.00004 = $0.40
NSCC fees: 1,000 * $0.00002290 = $0.229
SEC fees: $0 (only selling order triggers a fee)
TAF fees: 1,000 * 0.000119 = $0.119

Options Commissions and Fees

Options trading is also possible with CenterPoint Securities. The price per stock options contract on the entry-level with trading less than 10,000 shares is $0.50.

Between 10,000 and 50,000 options contracts per month lead to a commission of $0.40 per contract, with over 50,000 contracts trading volume of $0.30 per contract and over 100,000 options contracts trading volume charged with $0.20 per contract.

The SPX Index options cost $0.60, and other indices options $0.40 per contract.

Regulatory Fees for options traders are $0.03 per contract for ORF.

Trading Platform Fees

CenterPoint Securities platform fees consist of a monthly base fee for the platform and a-la-carte market data subscriptions.

CenterPoint Pro costs $120 monthly, and the Web version $20 monthly. The base platform fees get waived when traders trade more than 20k shares or over 100 options contracts per month for the web version and 200k shares or over 1,000 options contracts for the pro version.

The platform subscription does not include any market data, which makes it necessary to subscribe to the markets you need real-time data.

Data Fees

Here is the complete list of data fees with the prices per month (for non-professional users):

Level 1 Nasdaq: $1.50
Level 1 NYSE & AMEX: $3
Level 2 NYSE & NASDAQ: $18
Level 1 Pink Sheets: $15
Level 2 Pink Sheets: $50
Level 1 Options: $15
Level 2 Options: $50
ARCA Book: $15
INET Book (TotalView): $20

Users can also subscribe to fundamental data, trade signals and imbalance data. If you open your account via your business (e.g., LLCs), you have to pay professional data fees, which are significantly higher.

Account Fees

Broker Assisted Trades: $20 minimum with $0.0095 per share
Domestic Wire: $25
Foreign Wire: $50

Customer Service

The support section is well structured and includes links to the support center, account forms, a detailed onboarding process, and helpful platform tutorials.

Also, there is the contact us page where you contact CenterPoint Securities via a contact form and chat. General support is available from 7:00 AM EST to 6:00 PM EST by phone and email, and the live trading desk support for clients is available from 7:00 AM EST to 4:30 PM EST.

I found the platform tutorials and trading insights section exceptionally well-structured and helpful. Here you find everything from platform insights to day-trading knowledge.

CenterPoint Securities Review Summary

CenterPoint Securities is a great day trading broker with competitive commission rates, day trading platforms and dedicated support.

The short-selling inventories of easy-to-borrow but also hard-to-borrow shares are one of the best, making the broker also one of the best brokers for short-selling.

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