Thinkorswim

Infobox Company | company_name=thinkorswim Group Inc. | company_nasdaq|SWIM)| foundation="Education division (Investools) in 1983 as Telescan, Inc." | location=New York with offices in Chicago, IL, Draper, UT, Needham, MA, and Palo Alto, CA | key_people=Lee Barba, CEO
Ida Kane, SVP/CFO
Ainslie Simmonds, SVP/CMO/CPDO
Paul Helbling, SVP/CAO
Tim Knight, SVP Technology
Dale Ainge, SVP Student Acquisition
Scott Sheridan, EVP, thinkorswim Group Inc
Tom Sosnoff, EVP, thinkorswim Group Inc
Peter Santori, SVP and General Counsel | industry= Investor Education and Online Brokerage | products=Investor Education and Online Brokerage | revenue=profit $318 million USD (2007) | homepage= [http://www.thinkorswim.com/ www.thinkorswim.com]
[http://www.investools.com www.investools.com]

thinkorswim (nasdaq|SWIM) brokerage, with its Investools division, is an American company offering live and online investor education services.In addition, through its brokerage subsidiary, thinkorswim, Inc., Investools provides services to more than 71,175 funded trading accounts for self-directed option traders and institutional users who invest in equities, exchange-traded funds, futures, mutual funds and bonds.

Revenue for 2007 was a record $318 million, including the operations of thinkorswim from February 15, 2007. Client assets are almost $2.6 billion at December 31, 2007. The average client account is $45,000, significantly above industry averageFact|date=June 2007. Active subscribers to its education programs was 102,800.

Investools Inc. offers investor education and brokerage and related financial products and services for self-directed investors. Investools Education Group offers a range of investor education products in a variety of interactive delivery formats, including instructor-led synchronous and asynchronous online courses, in-person workshops, one-on-one and one-to-many online coaching programs and telephone, live-chat and email support. thinkorswim Inc., Investools’ online brokerage firm services self-directed stock, options and futures traders. thinkorswim offers customers a broad range of products including equity securities, fixed income, index products, options, futures, other derivatives and foreign exchangeFact|date=June 2007. thinkorswim provides front end trading platforms that allow its customers to trade electronically and provides trading tools and analytics.

Subsidiary Thinkorswim, Inc. is a brokerage firm registered with FINRA, a self-regulatory body. [Cite web
url=http://brokercheck.finra.org/Firm/FirmSummary.aspx
title=BrokerCheck THINKORSWIM, INC CRD# 106069 SEC# 8-52991
accessdate=2008-07-25
publisher=FINRA]

History

Telescan, a provider of stock charting and screening tools, was created by Dr. Richard Carlin in 1997 in Houston, Texas. In 1999 it merged with Online Investor's Advantage of Provo, Utah to form Investools.

In January 2005, Investools purchased Prophet Financial Systems, Inc. and embarked on a re-architecture of the Investor Toolbox. Prophet's founder, Tim Knight, was made the SVP of Technology. In May, Investools common stock was listed on NASDAQ in May 2006 and added to the Russell 3000, 2000 and Microcap indexes on June 30.

In September 2006, Investools announced a merger with thinkorswim, Inc., an online brokerage specializing in options that was founded in 1999. In February 2007, the company completed the merger with thinkorswim and its ticker symbol was changed to SWIM. In June 2008, the group adopted the name of its brokerage subsidiary, thinkorswim, for its corporate identity, changing the listed holding company's name from Investools, Inc. to thinkorswim Group Inc. [Cite news
url=http://phx.corporate-ir.net/phoenix.zhtml?c=104432&p=irol-newsArticle&ID=1163253&highlight=
title=Press release: thinkorswim Group Inc. Name Change Effective Today
date=2008-06-06
accessdate=2008-07-27
publisher=thinkorswim]

In May 2008, the company announced that it was cooperating with an informal SEC investigation into presentations used during sales meetings. [cite web|url=http://www.reuters.com/article/companyNews/idUSBNG9036020080501|title=Investools says SEC conducts informal inquiry|last=Nair|first=Dinesh |coauthors=Vinu Pilakkott|date=2008-5-1|publisher=Reuters|accessdate=2008-08-15]

References

External links

* [http://www.investools.com/ Investools education and trading tools]
* [http://www.thinkorswim.com Thinkorswim Group parent brokerage]