Can anyone share their experience with this firm and/or Rosenthal Collins Group (their clearing firm). They seem quite legit, but in view of the whole FutureWise scam, one cannot afford to take anything for granted anymore.
I've had an account at Apex since early February, and its worked out quite well. I used to have an account at Xpresstrade, but as my e-mini trading has progressed, I wanted to try a broker with lower-priced roundturns. I needed some hand-holding at the beginning because I had never used the J-Trader interface before. The Apex folks were right there with quick e-mail responses during the trading-day when I've had questions, or if I wanted to double-check whether I was flat or not. Once, I even got an e-mail from them (when I deliberately left a position open overnight) basically asking "Do you realize you are short 1 contract?" I've also called them a couple times during the day for more complex questions and they've picked up the phone on the first or second ring - very businesslike, very professional.
I took this off the J-trader Yahoo Group: RE: SERVICE UPGRADES FOR PATS (RCGexpress) We want to assure each of you that we are committed to offering you the most reliable and technologically sound PATS (RCGexpress) capability in the industry. With this goal in mind, we are making the following service upgrades to our PATS infrastructure: Additional Price Servers to Improve Customer Speed and Reliability: On Friday, March 15, we added an additional price server to our infrastructure. This server was tested and put into production on Sunday, March 17. A second price server will go into production by mid-week with two additional price servers scheduled to be added in the following week. Addition Order Routing Engine to Meet Peak Demand: To ease the stress on the system during peak demand periods and to provide day-to-day load balancing, we will add a second Order Routing Engine (ORE). This ORE is currently being built and is scheduled to be put into production within a week. This key application sends customer orders directly to the exchange matching engines. Two New Exchange Server Applications to Enhance A/C/E performance: To enhance service for a/c/e products, two new dual processor ESAs will be added this week â one for CBOT and one for Eurex. Internet Connectivity Redundancy: To ensure consistency of PATS service to you, we now have complete redundancy in our internet connectivity. If our main provider goes down, we will switch automatically to our back-up provider with no interruption in service. Six Additional Transaction Servers on Order: We presently have 6 additional transaction servers (TAS) on order to meet your growth needs. These new servers will allow us to optimize the number of customers on each server to prevent system slowdowns or lock-ups. PATS Capacity Planning Working Group: We have established a working group with key technical and business contacts at PATS to ensure hardware capacity planning in a coordinated and disciplined manner. RCG is one of the largest, if not the largest, customer of PATS and PATS is dedicated to accommodating our business. RCG has made a significant commitment of time, personnel and monetary resources to guarantee you the finest PATS network in the industry. We welcome your suggestions and advice as we build our infrastructure to suit the needs of your business. JGil, Proedgeonline.com
Shareholder revolt nears climax as patsystems' losses widen 26 March 2002 - Patsystems shareholders are to vote today on a motion by disgruntled former president Thomas Theys aimed at ousting current CEO David Jones and non-executive director Stewart Douglas-Mann. The move comes as the UK-based derivatives software house unveils a fourth quarter loss of £6.5 million, more than double the Q4 2000 loss of £2.92 million, after writing off unprofitable contracts. Patsystems' loss before tax for the year to 31 december 2001 rose to £15.2 million, against £9.2 million for the previous period. The current management team are blaming failures in previous management and boardroom wrangles for the company's failure to take advantage of soaring derivatives volumes and the move away from floor-based to screen trading systems. David Jones was brought in to replace Jacques de Cock six months ago during a management clear-out which also saw the departure of president Thomas Theys. The former Patsystems president, who owns about 14% of the company, is now leading a revolt to replace Jones with his own appointment Gary Brecka, whose background remains obscure. Theys is supported by Paul Heyward, another ex-employee with 3.4% of the company. They have also nominated Joe Solari, the one-time head of US-based network equipment outfit Cabletron Systems, as a board-level replacement for non-exec Douglas-Mann. Jones, who has the support of major City shareholders, says the vote is "an unwelcome distraction and is currently causing disruption to the business". He anticipates "substantial costs relating to the management of this issue".
PATS is a great system and the company wrangels are just the old problem of people who start businesses not always being the ones to take the established business forward - or not being perceived as such Whilst they are still racking up losses - the real work has been done and paid for - so in theory - they are never going to disapear - its just the business model and the shareholder register that might change
Cdntrader climaxes and replacement Cocks - no wonder they are under pressure - but i hear they have the balls to shoot for the sky!
From what I heard Pats has a 2 year burn rate right now. In other words if they do not earn another cent (pence) they can survive for 2 more years. Not to mention if they get to a bankruptcy situation I know of many brokerage firms that would love to buy them at a discount. Craig ApexFutures
Craig I was wondering what your experience with J-Trader reliability has been since the announced service upgrades by RCG? Are clients still losing connections or is that solved now? Thanks.
Cdntrader Good question - but might be better to request that update from the actual users - craig might find it a bit difficult to be impartial on this one!