Support
FAQs
Need something cleared up? Here are our most frequently asked questions.
General
About the app
Everything you need to know about the product and billing. Can’t find the answer you’re looking for? Please chat to our friendly team.
- Getting started is easy, simply download the Optionality app. Available on iOS & Android. If you’re 18 or older and a U.S. citizen or permanent resident, you can get set up in minutes! You just need to have standard personal information – SSN, permanent US address, phone number, and bank account details.
- For verification, we’ll take you through a few questions before your set up is complete. As always – feel free to reach out with any questions at optionalitysupport@lightspeed.com or directly at (888) 824-5312.
Optionality needs to cross reference SSN to perform a background check, as per the FINRA requirements for each broker/dealer. SSN’s are not stored by Optionality, however, they are stored in a safe and secure manner by our application vendor software partner, Orbis.
Broker-Dealers are, by law, required to collect some pieces of personal information to verify identity, and satisfy industry anti-money laundering, suitability, and record-keeping requirements.
Please refer to our Disclosures section for more in depth information on data security and privacy.
Optionality is the trading platform offered exclusively by Lightspeed Financial Services Group LLC.
Through Lightspeed Financial Services Group LLC., member Securities Investor Protection Corporation (SIPC). Funds are available to meet customer claims up $500,000, including a maximum of $250,000 for cash claims. For additional information regarding SIPC coverage, including a brochure, please contact SIPC at (202) 371-8300 or visit www.sipc.org.
Securities and investments are offered through Lightspeed Financial Services Group, LLC., a registered Broker-Dealer and member FINRA and SIPC. “Optionality” refers to the mobile App provided by Lightspeed Financial Services Group LLC. Securities are offered through Lightspeed Financial Services Group LLC. Options involve a high degree of risk and are not suitable for all investors as the risks inherent in options trading may expose investors to potentially significant losses. Please read Characteristics and Risks of Standardized Options before deciding to invest in options. Third-party information posted to the Optionality platform arising from the social community is not endorsed by Optionality and should not be construed as investment advice, an offer or solicitation to purchase or sell any financial instrument. Information provided by third parties is not warranted as to its completeness, timeliness or accuracy and is subject to change at any time, without notice. It is expected that users will vet third-party information themselves as to its accuracy and completeness. Optionality reserves the right, at its sole discretion, to delete or edit any third-party content posted within the platform. Any third-party content posted on the platform does not reflect the views of Optionality or any of their subsidiaries or affiliates. For additional questions, please contact our customer service department at optionalitysupport@lightspeed.com or call (888) 824-5312.
Lightspeed pays for SEC and regulatory fees on your behalf. Please refer to our fee schedule for a complete listing of relevant charges. Optionality is committed to making our platform accessible for everyone and meeting appropriate accessibility guidelines and standards. If you use assistive technology, such as a screen reader, eye-tracking device, voice recognition software, etc., and have difficulty accessing information on the Optionality platform, please contact us directly at optionalitysupport@lightspeed.com or call (888) 824-5312 so that we may assist you. All investments involve risk and past performance of a security does not guarantee future results or returns. While diversification may help spread risk, it does not guarantee a profit or protect you against loss in a down market. There is always a potential to lose money when investing in securities, and investors need to fully consider their investment objectives prior to investing. Securities are offered through Lightspeed Financial Services Group, LLC., a registered broker-dealer and member of FINRA and the Securities Investor Protection Corporation (SIPC). Our Clearing firm, Wedbush Securities provides excess Securities Investor Protection Corporation (“SIPC”) coverage for each client account carried by Wedbush on behalf of Lightspeed Financial Services Group LLC. Each account is covered up to $25,500,000 at no charge. SIPC provides coverage up to $500,000, of which a maximum of $250,000 applies to cash credit balances. In addition to the SIPC coverage, Wedbush has purchased from Lloyd’s of London an excess SIPC bond that provides additional coverage for up to $25,000,000 in cash and securities for each client account, subject to an aggregate loss limit of $100,000,000. This bond covers cash credit balances to a maximum of $900,000 for a total of $1,150,000 in cash balances. Similar to SIPC protection, this additional insurance does not protect against a loss in the market value of securities. System response, trade executions and account access may be affected by market conditions, system performance, quote delays and other factors. The risk of loss in electronic trading can be substantial. You should therefore consider whether such trading is suitable for you in light of your financial resources and circumstances. This is not an offer or solicitation in any jurisdiction where we are not authorized to do business. Optionality makes no guarantee as to the currency, accuracy, or quality of information published and/or archived on this website, nor will Optionality accept any responsibility for other organizations, businesses, and private persons that provide information on this website. All information on this website regarding products and services provided by Optionality is subject to change without notice. Reasonable efforts are taken to ensure the accuracy and integrity of all information provided here, but Optionality is not responsible for misprints, out-of-date information, or errors. Optionality does not provide any financial or investment advice. Optionality does not recommend or endorse any investment instruments or trading strategy. The material on this website is provided for informational and educational purposes only and shall not in any manner be considered a recommendation or endorsement of any strategy or investment. Any investment decision and/or strategy that you make or utilize, whether or not such a decision or strategy derives from or relies upon material accessed or provided through this website, is done at your sole discretion and your own risk. Before making any investment decisions, please consult additional sources of information and/or your legal or tax advisor. US only
The Optionality service team is available from 8:30am – 5:00pm ET when the markets are open. Please note, our staff are unavailable on market holidays.
You can contact our team by emailing optionalitysupport@lightspeed.com or calling us at (888) 824-5312.
The Optionality app is available to both US residents and non-US residents. However, residents of certain countries are prohibited from opening accounts pursuant to OFAC and FATF designated high risk jurisdictions.
If you have any questions regarding whether or not you qualify for an Optionality account, please reach to optionalitysupport@lightspeed.com and we’ll be happy to assist.
Trading
How to use the app
Everything you need to know about the trading process inside app. Can’t find the answer you’re looking for? Talk to our friendly team.
Once your brokerage application has been accepted, it’s time to fund your account – the easiest way to do so is through the ‘Transfer Funds’ link on the user dashboard.Once you connect a bank account and deposit funds into your Optionality account, you can start trading! Please note that it may take up to 3 business days for your funds to clear.
A day trade is constituted by opening and closing the same position on the same trading day. The industry-wide ruling on day trading, which applies to all traders, are as follows:
If a trader exceeds 3 day-trades in a rolling 5-business-day period, the account will be labeled as a ‘Pattern Day Trader’ account. An account that has been designated as such will need to maintain a $25,000 balance in the account to continue day trading. If another day trade occurs with the account value at less than $25,000, there will be a 90-day trading restriction placed on the account.
Optionality offers both cash and margin accounts, though we only extend margin to accounts with over $2,000 of equity (you may still open a margin account with less starting equity in order to trade spreads).
Account value is determined by the total cash balance plus the total market value of securities held, which are priced at the midpoint of the bid/ask spread.
- Bid price = the highest price that a buyer is willing to pay for a security.
- Ask price = the lowest price that a seller is willing to accept for a security.
- Midpoint price = the middle of the bid and ask prices.
Settlement is the process of exchanging cash for securities. Options trades settle the business day after the trade date – so if a trade is placed on a Thursday, it will settle on a Friday (barring any holiday).
Optionality charges a $0.50 contract fee, so on a single trade there will be a total contract fee of $1.00.
Please refer to our fee schedule for a comprehensive view of all charges and fees.
Optionality currently offers two types of orders:
- Market Order – when a market order is entered, the trade will execute at the current market price.
- Limit Order – a limit order specifies the exact price of the order. The order may fill better than this price, but it won’t fill worse than this price.
Although you can control the execution price with a limit order, it may take longer to execute.
An option is a contract that gives the buyer the right to buy or sell an underlying security, at an agreed upon price, within a specified date. There are two types of options featured on Optionality:
- Call Option – a call option gives the buyer the right to buy the underlying security at a specified price within a specific time period. A call option increases in value when the underlying security increases in price.
- Put Option – a put option gives the buyer the right to sell the underlying security at a specified price within a specific time period. A put option increases in value when the underlying security decreases in price.
A strike price is the specified price at which the underlying security can be bought or sold upon exercise or assignment.
- An option spread is a type of option trading strategy entered by buying and selling options of the same class (call or put), on the same underlying security, with the same expiration, but different strike prices.
- Debit spreads are strategies that must be paid for to put on – meaning that for debit call spreads, the value will increase if the underlying stock price increases, and for debit put spreads, the value will increase if the underlying stock price decreases. Please keep in mind that there are other factors at play (time to expiration, volatility, etc.) that may impact the value of a debit spread.
- Credit spreads are strategies that take in premium when opening a position –for credit call spreads, the value will increase if the underlying stock price decreases, and for credit put spreads, the value will increase if the underlying stock price increases. Please keep in mind that there are other factors at play (time to expiration, volatility, etc.) that may impact the value of a debit spread.
- Expiration – the last date on which the options contract will trade. On this date, Optionality sells all expiring trades starting at 3:45 ET – if there are adverse market movements after-hours, we try to prevent unwanted results on the users behalf. *Auto-close is not guaranteed
- Exercise – If an option is “In-the-Money” (the strike is below the current stock price for a call, or above the current stock price for a put), the holder can elect to exercise the call and will receive shares of stock. Optionality customers are not able to exercise options.
- Assignment – assignment occurs if the seller of the options contract is obligated to deliver the stock and as a result becomes short stock of the underlying equity.
- Optionality’s auto-close feature automatically closes out all expiring positions. However, we cannot guarantee that a user won’t be assigned early during the course of trading. Although this is very rare, and usually beneficial, Optionality will close the assigned shares immediately so the user should not have to take any action.
Go to pending trades on the user dashboard-> tap the “edit” button -> edit or cancel the trade accordingly.
Optionality makes money in three ways:
- Options contract fees of $0.50 per leg
- Interest on uninvested cash balances
- Payment for Order Flow (PFOF)
The options contract fee help us continue to provide users with an innovative, up-to-date, streamlined and intuitive options trading experience. We aim to continue focusing on optimizing the customer experience and platform.
Optionality enables customers to trade pre-packaged options spreads, single calls and puts. Through our proprietary algorithms, we thoughtfully package our spreads based on where the stock is trading and when the contracts expire.
- Daily Volume – the number of times a particular options contract is traded on any given day.
- Open Interest – number of open (outstanding) contracts that have not been exercised or closed out.
The TipRanks Daily Sentiment score is an AI based estimation system that aggregates positive and negative “snippets” from various market and news sources to come up with a sentimental signal for a particular stock.
Trading on Optionality is open during normal market hours, which are 9:30 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. ET. Optionality does not currently support after-hours trading.
To help ensure all options positions are closed out by expiration, Optionality employs a proprietary auto closing feature that begins 10 minutes before market close on expiration days (typically, this will be Fridays at 3:45 p.m., unless of a holiday or potential market disruption). Our auto-close feature employs various order types at various times, to work towards best execution prices as well as timely fills. By closing all positions before expiration, chances of after-hours assignment and risks of short option legs decrease.
Account
How to manage your account
Everything you need to know about managing your Optionality account. Can’t find the answer you’re looking for? Talk to our friendly team.
Customers can see trade history in our ‘Recent’ section. In addition to viewing past trading activity, metrics such as biggest profit and average profit/ loss are available.
Statements, documents, and confirmations are available in the ‘Account’ tab, under the My Account section.
Navigate to ‘Account’, click ‘Account’, then choose the ‘Change Password’ section and create your new password.
If you’re locked out of the App, you can open Optionality and click ‘Sign In’. From there, click Forgot Password, and you’ll be prompted to reset the password details.
Upon successful completion of the account sign-up process, you will be prompted to fund your account through ACH payments system. Simply follow the prompts once connected by choosing entering your bank account, logging in, and completing the funding process.
To view or change your suitability information, please reach out to our team at optionalitysupport@lightspeed.com. We’ll be happy to provide your official suitability information as well as make any changes necessary.
There are two ways to do this. On the home screen, you can select ‘Transfer Funds’ in the top left corner and then connect to your new bank account through our banking interface. Additionally, you can navigate to the Account tab and scroll down to the Banking section and select ‘Connected Banks’. From there, you can follow the same prompts to get your new account set up.
Similar to linking a new bank account, there are multiple ways to do this. On the home screen, you can select ‘Transfer Funds’ in the top left corner and then choose the account where you’d like to transfer your funds. Additionally, you can navigate to the Account tab and scroll down to the Banking section and click ‘Connected Banks’. From there, you can follow the same prompts from Plaid to select the destination bank account and amount of transfer.
Withdraws may take 3-5 days to post.
You can deactivate your Optionality account by navigating to the Account tab, selecting Account Information under the My Account section, and tapping ‘Deactivate Account’.
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