Includes charting....Radarscreen....but not fees for the CME....etc....if you trade Futures. VSTscalper
O.K., thanks for the reply. Next question. How much experience do you have trading? If this is new, or relatively new to you, then I would suggest working on a futures simulator first. There are several brokers out there that offer free simulator usage for a couple of weeks or so. Upside of course is you risk no money. Downside is that you risk no money. A funny thing happens when you have real money on the line. So, a simulator is not likely to give you an accurate picture of future trading results. Nevertheless, I would still recommend a simulator to at least get your feet wet.
i think ib sim has no time limt....and ninja is a rip-off; zerolinetrader costs $60 per yr and has all da features u can imagine.
If your broker is IB Buttontrader is King. Zeroline trader is also good. If your broker is someone else and they work with Ninja, that is viable alternative. Tradestation is tough to beat for what you get. If you trade stocks, commish is a little high but execution is good. Futures are OK. Easyrider, so long as you meet the min trade parameters, charting, optionstation, radar screen are free. You pay for the exchanges you need. Otherwise if you dont have minimum number of trades, you will pay $100 for Tradestation charts and if you elect Radarsceen permission $60.
I'll second IB plus the 3rd party front end of your choice (there are several from which to choose). In addition to those mentioned, Bracket Trader is worth looking at as well. The paper trading facility in IB seems pretty realistic (i.e. pessimistic). I'm a beginner index futures trader too so a simulator that's pessimistic on entries and exits is a good idea. I've also used TSim+ which is free and no-frills but good to get your feet wet.
If you are going to be doing automated trading, than this does not apply, but CQG Trader I like. Think of it as the mini-cooper of X_Trader, it's free at many brokerages. But again, that is only if you are doing manual trading. If you are doing automated... well the other suggestions would be useful. EDIT: Sorry, CQG Trader adds .50 cents per share to your trades at the brokerage I am at. But it is normal.
Is any of the aforementioned platform/broker offer a free trial of the simulator without having to fund the account? I plan to start trading futures also and obviously I want to simulate first. I've checked with a couple but they need you to fund your account first. I would like to try a simulator from different firms to choose the one best for me, but I don't think it makse sense to have to fund every account I want to try. Thanks.
Sure they do.... just go to any broker website, most have 1 week demo's at least. Try them all and find out what you like. I don't believe Tradestation has it though. IB sucks because they don't offer a full demo, just delayed, and the company takes advantage of the people that like the "big boys" of brokers. But just search on google. If you want a demo for longer than 2 weeks max, then you will probably have to pay to demo it, or just fund an account.
CQG trader only charges .14 a side to use their platform and not .50 - just call them up and ask them for yourselves
I'm using the oectrader platform from openecry. It's pretty good, and there are no fees. You can also trade pits with it too which makes it good for swing/pos trading like I do. They also give what I believe are pretty good rates.I'm paying $3r/t electronic and $8r/t for pits. the pit executions are pretty good too. It's manual entry only but they have a simulator.