Yes and no. Sorry. Even commercial poviders sometimes offer alternative hookup points close to the exchange.
You name TT - guess what, TT is not a provider, it is a technology. Your broker has to implement TT and provides the data feed from his severs. Bad for you that I AM using TT.
The Crossland (my futures broker) TT machines are located in Chicago. I have a 1ms delay towards them. From there the data goes directly to the exchange. Nanex (my other data provider) has different endpoints and can hook you to a Chicago link when you ask.
Naturally if you use IB or some other general shop that may be different, but then - there may be alternatives to that, it is all about putting 5 minutes effort into it.
I think you're mistaken about TT. They run their own data servers and the data is distributed to customers directly. Brokers sign up to offer the TT front end product but they do not provide their own data for TT front end. I have a attached an image of were TTs servers are located. This is from their website.
Interesting and possible. This also would explain why I do not see the difference - they do have a data location in chicago anyway. Result is the same.
So, the argument in the core still stands - you mvoe close to where your data is located and processed, and all major exchanges have colocation facilities, so you go close to (i.e. same city). Amazon etc. are in the middle of nowhere.
Note that if you do "US Stocks" you also go in the middle of nowhere - exchanges are well distributed. You can only go close to one place ;) Sadly.
But if you rade one specific exchange mostly, then it makes no sense to go AWS somewhere in the middle of nowhere - especially as it is a LOT more expensive than a decent regular hosting center.
Unless you're high frequency, a few milliseconds here and there is not going to make a difference. Human response times are at about 300 milliseconds. Probably closer to a full second when tired from starring at a screen all day. Any automated system no matter where the servers are is still going to destroy human trading.
Unless you're high frequency, a few milliseconds here and there is not going to make a difference. Human response times are at about 300 milliseconds. Probably closer to a full second when tired from starring at a screen all day. Any automated system no matter where the servers are is still going to destroy human trading.
No, sorry, totally crap statement.
Ther are a couple of scenarios where millisencds may well count:
* Risk control. The time between execution and order update may mean money, regardless how fast you trade.
* Market breakdowns (flash crash). We track bid/ask integrity and regarless of the strategy, there are breakers that rip us out of hte market when certain stability events occur. I do not care how long my trade is, I want t obe out of the market before the order book totally disappears, which means being out before the people that dont pay for colocation ;)
Plus, again - this is not "does it make sense to have an autoamted server". You basically argue oit is ok to take an inferior product for a higher price than to go close to the exchange for a lower price. I hate to be direct, but this is a retarded point of view.
I know many people that trade from home - fine. But IF you go colocation, why not go to a place as good as possible?
In my case, I run a 125ms delay to the exchanges from my offices (located in europe), so - for me it was clear I need trading to be in the USA.
So, why should I go to something crappy for that like AWS?
I pay 180 USD per month now for a system.
I have 1 ms ping time to TT.
I have a quad core + hyper-threading, 16gb memory, 120gb ssd + 1000gb hard disc, 10tb traffic and I have my own computers as fallback in my office to shut everything down in case an issue happens.
This is a quite higher end setup (a lot larger than most VPS are, but I run multiple virtual machines). But it is cheaper than a comparable Amazon setup - by a larger margin, and it is better located.
Amazon AWS is very reliable, but in the past has had some downtime - nothing is perfect. In my experience with AWS you are pinging from Virginia, around 10-20ms to NY.
A good VPS can get you better pings and be as reliable, or even more reliable, than AWS. On the other hand, a bad VPS provider can give you nothing but headaches.
PM me if you want more info on my experience with specific VPS's for trading.
Thanks for the replies, please can anyone recommend a reliable, quick, secure VPS with close proximity to New Jersey, US?
I checked out Go Daddy, Myhosting, both of which have their pros and cons, there's a tonne on the internet but not sure how valid the reviews are. Very grateful for any recommendations of where to try next.
