I have already heard about these guys, I am interested in Gene's opinion, and RTharp, and Jeff D's......75cent "introductory offer" check the fine print...add for ECN's, add for NYSE (2 cents), etc....where do these people come from? oh yeah.... www.pointdirex.com
LOL, looks like they will not attract ANY people who trade NYSE or who trade a combination or NYSE and Nasdaq... that 2 cents thing is a killer! Just my 2 cents, Candle
I Trade an account for these guys right now and I can tell you that trading Naz stocks is the best execution I have ever seen or felt. It is truly amazing compared to my RealTick woes which I endured for too long. I can only estimate how many cents per share I SAVE on better faster fills than chasing momentum with Realtick. Agreed that this is well suited for my style but perhaps not (right now) for listed stocks so you guys probably have a point there. From what I understand they are planning significant improvements to their connectivity to NYSE and whether this translates to reduced commissions for listed I am not sure. As far as ECN passthrus, they are competitive and I can scale in and out at will without having to pay my old $15 per execution from TerraNova. Regardless, I would not go back to RT for execution even if Terra Nova went cents/share so it is moot from a NAZ perspective. Turok we have exchanged friendly posts in the past and I totally respect your opinions etc., but let's not get into the IB discussion because I traded with IB and I can tell you there is no comparison. I will take the one cent plus pass trus over IB's one cent no pass thrus any day in the next million years the executions are that much better. You will just have to trust me on that one....or better yet I will do a WEBX meeting and show you my screen live while I execute. .....I am happy to do so. Scott
Don, FYI these guys "came from" a long successful prop trading path in Orlando. They have been trading on their software on a prop basis for well over three years so they did not just come out of the woodwork. Many of their traders have come from and/or evolved from the Watcher/Broadway style of trading and they have done quite well at it. BTW it may be just me but it seems your posts recently (chatrooms, other prop b/d's etc) do seem to be a bit inflamatory. I know you must get bored when one of your pairs gets out of line during the mid-session doldrums, but is there any other specific reason you are trying to shine a negative perspective on other firms in the industry? RTharp, This is not meant in an antogonistic way either but I traded VTS for several months and Point Direx order entry capabilities and executions are far superior IMO. HOWEVER PLEASE NOTE that we have established in previous posts that much of this may be relevant to the broker's infrastructure as my VTS broker simply lacked badly in that area (apparently). I have had no experience with Echo but enough credible people on this board (you, TraderJim etc) have convinced me that Echo has unmatched infrastructure for supporting the VTS platform so please consider this. Also, I realize you and many ECHO traders trade listed exclusively so cost structure comparisons here would certainly be an advantage for ECHO at this point. I realize that there will be very few remote traders who have any experience with PointDirex at this point so that is my two cents worth.
I could certainly believe your improvement over Realtick. I love their data, but there was never anything special about their execution (and that might be going easy on them). I still have an RT account and my IB fills beat them by a nice margin pretty much every time. >Let's not get into the IB discussion Oh, why not. If you had bad execution experiences with IB I'd be the last one to call you a liar. It just that I've had good results over thousands of trades now. I spend the first hour every morning trading AMAT in the quirkiest momentum style you can imagine (LVL2 only) and in that hour I average over 45 trades. You simply CAN'T execute any usefully faster than I get it on IB cause I get confirmation practically before my finger can lift off the hotkey. So, if it takes me a quarter second to buy on IB, these guys are doing it in what? to be "a million years" better. >You will just have to trust me on that one.... No offense, I think I like you and I know I respect your opinions and experience but I don't trust you cause I just don't see how it can be ANY faster. >or better yet I will do a WEBX meeting and >show you my screen live while I execute. I'm up for that one. We'll go into AMAT and if a neutral third party can tell the difference between your executions and mine, I'll buy you a very nice dinner. JB
Well I have to say that my opinion of IB may be out of date then. I tried them well over a year ago now and their hot keys were not great and I had reliability issues. If your executions are that fast than I admit there is likely not much difference. BUt it would still be fun to try the AMAT experience anyway Another issue may the the flexibility to change on the fly...ie the market moves away so you have to revise the order entry strategy, direct it to another ECN that is there and gone in the blink of an eye, etc. Also, I can send out multiple orders and the system will auto cancel the rest after I get a fill. Based on our discussions of SUperSOES in the other Don Bright initiated thread, I often throw out a SOES market (in a fast market) and then use my ECN hot keys to pick off ECN volume as it appears. THen if I get my whole order filled that way, the SOES order is auto cancelled. Lastly, ECN volume for 7 out of 9 ecns is aggragated into one total mass of liquidity that sits above the bid/offer (sort of like super montage will be), and since it comes from direct lines, it appears a second before the volume hits the Naz L2 quote, and often I get volume that never appears on the Real Tick guy's screen (unless he is integrating the island/archip/redibook quote within the L2 box). Gotta run out to dinner...but I enjoy these posts!
Yes they back new traders with capital but I think you have to trade in their office(s). I will check on that.