Tapeboard is a professional-grade market terminal that runs in a web browser. It combines a real-time stock scanner, candlestick charts with 44 indicators, market heatmap, 800K+ economic data series, SEC filings search, insider trades, crypto order books, forex, and economic calendar into a single unified dashboard. No downloads, no setup.

Is Tapeboard a cheap Bloomberg Terminal alternative?

Yes. Tapeboard gives retail traders institutional-grade market tooling — real-time scanning, charts, SEC filings, and macro data — for $39/mo, versus a Bloomberg Terminal's roughly $24,000 per year. It runs in one browser tab with no contract, and there is a permanent free tier so you can start with no credit card.

Is Tapeboard's free tier really free, or does it expire?

The free tier is permanent — no credit card, nothing expires, and it never auto-converts to paid. Every new account also gets 7 days of full Pro access automatically, then settles onto the free tier: 15-minute delayed data, 10 of 45 scanner presets, and 12 of 44 chart indicators. It stays useful indefinitely.

How much does Tapeboard cost?

Tapeboard has a permanent free tier (no credit card). Pro is $39/mo (or $290/yr — about $24/mo billed annually) and unlocks real-time data, all 45 scanner presets, all 44 chart indicators, alerts, AI research, and the trade journal. Terminal is $79/mo and adds the full AI suite. Every new account gets 7 days of Pro automatically.

What kind of data does Tapeboard cover?

Tapeboard covers real-time US equities quotes and candles, 800,000+ FRED economic series, SEC EDGAR filings with 10-K/10-Q/8-K search, insider transactions, cryptocurrency order books, forex rates, commodities, yield curves, and an economic calendar. All in one interface.

What tools does Tapeboard replace?

Tapeboard replaces the five or six browser tabs most market participants keep open: FinViz (screener), TradingView (charts), Yahoo Finance (fundamentals), FRED (economic data), SEC EDGAR (filings), and CoinGecko (crypto). Everything is in one tab with consistent keyboard shortcuts and streaming data.

Who is Tapeboard for?

Tapeboard is built for self-directed investors, analysts, day traders, finance students, and anyone who wants professional-grade market tooling without the five-figure terminal fee.

Do I need to install anything?

No. Tapeboard runs entirely in your web browser with zero setup. Sign up and the full terminal loads in a single tab.

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May 19, 20263 min readTapeboard Desk

The active trader's stack: broker, terminal, charting

Most retail traders are running a stack they never deliberately built — a brokerage app, a free charting site, a Discord, and a screenshot folder. The serious-trader stack has three deliberate layers. Here's what each layer does and which tools fit.

active-tradingstackbrokerterminaltools

Most retail traders are running a stack they never deliberately built. Decisions get made fast under tape pressure, and the question becomes "what's the next move on this ticker" before the tools have been chosen with intent. The result: a brokerage app for execution, a free charting site for analysis, a research workspace bookmarked but rarely opened, a Discord with too much noise, and a screenshot folder that pretends to be a journal. That stack works until it doesn't.

The serious-trader stack has three deliberate layers. Each layer does exactly one job, and the boundary between them is the discipline that compounds over months.

Layer 1: The broker

Execution. Order routing. Margin terms. Multi-leg options support. Futures (or not). Cash sweep. The broker is where capital lives and where fills happen. The choices here are well-documented and the differences are real:

Robinhood — free, mobile-first, PFOF execution, Legend desktop for active workflow. Best for traders who started on mobile and want free.
Schwab — institutional pedigree, thinkorswim desktop, deep options approval, cash sweep.
Interactive Brokers (IBKR) — direct market routing, lowest commissions on size, professional-grade infrastructure, TWS desktop.
Webull — mobile-first competitor to Robinhood with active-trader features, free Level 2.
TastyTrade — options-first, low-friction multi-leg, education-heavy.

The broker decision should be made on execution quality, margin terms, and the options approval tier you need — not on which one has the prettiest research panel.

Layer 2: The charting surface

Where you read price action. Some traders use the broker's built-in charts (Legend, thinkorswim, TWS) and that's enough. Others want Pine Script for custom indicators, multi-chart layouts, or a charting surface that survives a broker change. The realistic options:

Your broker's desktop if charting depth is sufficient and you don't change brokers
TradingView if you live in custom indicators, multi-chart layouts, or chart-driven workflows
Lightweight charts inside your research terminal if you want one less tab

Charting is the layer most often overinvested in. A $59.95/mo TradingView Premium subscription is right if you're writing Pine Script. It's overkill if you're not.

Layer 3: The research terminal

This is the layer most retail traders never deliberately build. The research terminal is where the non-price signal lives: SEC filings, options analytics, short interest, gamma exposure, squeeze scoring, custom scanners with combinable filters, halts, premarket movers, news catalysts, FRED macro context.

The question isn't "do I need this layer." Every serious workflow needs it. The question is whether you're paying for it through six separate tabs (Finviz + Yahoo Finance + EDGAR + a broker scanner + a Discord + a screenshot folder) or through one terminal with a consistent layout.

The terminal layer is where Tapeboard sits. At $39/month, Tapeboard covers:

Sub-90-second SEC filing alerts on every 8-K, Form 4, 13G/A, 10-K
Options chains with IV rank and gamma exposure
Short interest, borrow fee, float utilization, and the Short Squeeze Score (0-100 composite, weights disclosed)
Custom real-time scanner with float / RVOL / gap / catalyst filters
Premarket scanner from 4:00 AM ET
Halt and LULD alerts integrated with the watchlist
FRED macro series with full charting

The terminal layer is broker-agnostic by design. Whether your fills come from Robinhood, Schwab, IBKR, Webull, or TastyTrade, the research surface stays consistent.

Why bundling everything into one product fails

The temptation is to find one tool that does all three layers. Bloomberg Terminal does. It costs $24,000 per seat per year. At retail price points ($29-$99/month), the products that promise "all-in-one" inevitably do one layer well and the other two thinly.

The deliberate stack works because each tool is built for one job. The broker executes. The charting surface charts. The research terminal surfaces signal. The boundary discipline — knowing what each layer is for and not asking the wrong tool to do the wrong job — is what separates traders who improve from traders who stall.

If you're building the stack from scratch, start with the research terminal because it's the layer most often missing. The broker and charting surface are usually adequate; the unified research surface is usually what's been left to six browser tabs and a Discord.