Digs, When you log into Freetrade the site looks exactly like Ameritrade with all the fancy buttons. Very sophisticated compared to Scottrade. Even when you wire money in, it goes to Ameritrade. I'll put in a few trades this week and get a better idea.
There is nothing dishonest about what they might do. For example, they might always give you your limit price if they get a fill and pocket any price improvement the order might receive from the exchange. I have no idea if they actually do things like that, but I wouldn't necessarily consider it dishonest.
I've been using Freetrade for about 6 months now and am happy with it. I trade 1-2 times/day, only liquid nasdaq (almost exclusively AMAT), and almost always market orders. I almost always get filled at the inside in about 1-2 seconds. Worst fill was 35 seconds and that only happened once, with 2 or 3 fills in the 5-6 second range. Much better than I was getting from Scottrade, but possibly not as good as you would get from IB. They were having quote problems a couple of weeks ago (Streamer, same as Ameritrade and Datek), but it has been fine lately, and was fine before that. Level II is $10/month right now. According to their routing disclosure, all their market orders and about 1/2 their limit orders go to NITE, with the other 1/2 going to ISLD. I would imagine they send the non-marketable limit orders to ISLD to get the rebate, and everything else to NITE for the order flow kickback. I can't vouch for the interface, as I trade through QuoteTracker.
Digs, on this board you can't think about using Freetrade. What would the world become if everyone used Freetrade. You're supposed to go with Interactive Brokers or TradeStation.
Digs, Just put in 2 Market Trades with Freetrade and I'm very impressed. They filled in 1-2 seconds for a good price. I would highly recommend them.
Thx for comments... I am still with IB/TWS, they have a not so great STOP entry order method, were they hold stop orders on there servers and send the stop order (as a market order) to the ECN when the stop order price has been hit. Thus a delay in that order transmission can be critical and costly. Could you please check out how freetrade.com handle stock stop orders, Do the send them to the ECN/Exchange or do they have the similar setup to IB/TWS. I tried to email them but I have not heard anything, my guess is that you have to be a member before they give you service. thx
It will be a while until I use a mechanical stop, I normally keep them mental unless I'm out for the day. They do have all the fancy buttons Ameritrade has including MOC orders. All I can say is I put 2 market orders for shorts and was surprised to get the ask on one and right down the middle on the other. IB never seemed like that great a deal to me because I put in some volume and commisions would be very expensive unless you are using futures.
How about Brokerage America, anybody using it? They only have free trades using Market orders and only over 1000 shares. Limit orders are $5. One thing that sounds good is online bill pay service and check writing capability.
Digs, 1) Is there software windows EXE based, or a web browser Their tradig system is purely through a web browser. You can get Windows EXE based system that works with FreeTrade, (as well as others) through QuoteTracker. 2) Cannot comment on fills - refer to #5 3) Do they have smart order entry to ECNs Freetrade interface is identical to Ameritrade as of their latest update with the only exception being that you cannot trade uncovered options. The system does not support order routing. 4) Is there datafeed to order entry system ok They use the same system as Ameritrade site. Not 100% sure if you mean the datafeed for streaming quotes to the end user or what they use on the back end. The streaming quote feed is the same as DATEK and Ameritrade. Usually good, relatively few glitches. 5) How long have you been using them, how many trades do you do. Don't trade with them. Just write software that works with various brokers, including Freetrade. Jerry Medved http://www.quotetracker.com