Educational only, not financial advice. Broker features, options-approval requirements, 0DTE availability, and fees change and vary by account — verify current details on the broker’s own site. NoVo is independent and not affiliated with the brokers named.

Trading at Schwab means one thing to an options trader: thinkorswim. The platform Schwab inherited from TD Ameritrade is still the deepest retail options workstation there is, and it turns a 0DTE SPY scalp into a fully instrumented exercise.

Approval levels, Schwab-style

Schwab tiers options approval; buying long calls and puts sits at the lower levels. Apply through the account settings, and once granted, check that same-day expirations appear on your chain — does my broker offer 0DTE SPY if they don’t.

The thinkorswim chain

In thinkorswim’s Trade tab, load SPY and today’s expiration is the top row (SPY lists a 0DTE every weekday). You can add every column a scalper could want; keep it simple, read the quote, and pick a strike — the responsive near-the-money strike that trades like the index, not the far-OTM lottery ticket.

Brackets are native — use them

Place the order from the chain at one contract; thinkorswim attaches an exit order at entry as naturally as breathing. So set your stop in the same ticket — decay is fast on 0DTE, a hard stop beats a mental one, and the Analyze tab will show you exactly what happens if you drift into the close.

thinkorswim can model anything about your position. What it models is still your position, not the dealers’.

The part no broker gives you

The deepest retail platform still leaves the deepest question open: where is the other side positioned? That’s where NoVo fits: it maps the dealer levels on SPY, QQQ and IWM and keeps a scored record of what that structure has tended to mean. It does not connect to Schwab or any other broker — you place every trade yourself. Either way: start small, and remember levels are structure, not signals.