How does Direct Trading work?
Composer’s Direct Trading feature allows you to manually buy and sell individual stocks, ETFs, and crypto, outside of automated symphonies. This guide outlines what Direct Trading entails and how to utilize the feature within the Composer platform.
With Direct Trading, you can:
- Manually buy and sell stocks, ETFs, and crypto (if you’re in an eligible state)
- View these assets separately in your portfolio
- Track all orders (pending and completed) in the order history
- Place market orders (limit orders are on the roadmap)
- Directly traded assets are fully independent from your symphonies and are reflected separately in your performance metrics
Using Direct Trading
You can start a trade by clicking on the trade button in the top navigation bar. From there, you can:
- Select Buy or Sell
- Search for the asset you want to trade
- Choose to trade in shares or dollars
If crypto trading is not available in your state, crypto assets will not be available in the trade dialog.
Portfolio View
Directly traded assets are displayed in your portfolio separately from symphonies. You can:
- View performance for individual holdings
- Track overall portfolio performance, including manual trades
- Initiate new trades directly from these holdings
- View the factsheet for your individual holdings, which includes price charts and fundamental data
Frequently Asked Questions
Do I need a Trading Pass to use Direct Trading?
No. The Trading Pass is not required for this feature.
Can I sell assets that are held inside a symphony?
No. This feature does not support overriding or selling assets held by a symphony. You can liquidate part of a symphony or all of it by navigating to the symphony and selecting Sell.
Why can’t I find the Trade option for my account?
This feature is available for Stocks, Crypto, or Stocks + Crypto accounts held with our clearing firm, Alpaca. It is unavailable for Apex accounts or retirement accounts (Roth/Traditional IRAs).
If you want to transfer your Stocks account from Apex to Alpaca, please contact our team at help@composer.trade for further assistance.