SORAK, I checked out the site and it seemed pretty vague to me. Is this an add-on service strictly for IB accounts? The was no mention of any other broker affiliation. I don't use IB, so I was just wondering if it was even worth looking into. Thanks
When Cooltrade first came out a few years ago, it used cybertrader. But since has moved to IB because of there better trading fees and more solid software. As a Cooltrade user, I'm glad the change happened because I like 1 dollar trades verses 10 dollar trades! I heard that Cooltrade gets requests by other brokers to connect to their accounts, but I dont have any details about that. They are very responsive if you send them email with your questions. Shana
I started with Ameritrade, because that was what a friend taught me how to use, I still have an Apex account but I don't use it much for trading, I like the information it provides. It may or may not be worth it to you. I used Ameritrade (before TD bought them) and traded at $10.99 a trade, now its $9.99 a trade. No monthly fees. IB is a $1.00 a trade (up to 200 shares ect ect look on website) and 10.00 monthly fees that is waived if you have 10 trades a month. Personally, my autotrader has done 19 trades with 1000 share lots this month already, so from strictly a broker fee standpoint I'm at 76.00 dollars with IB and would be 190.00 With IB. Combine my other trades that i limit to a dollar for 200 shares its much more beneficial for me. Perhaps you have a better plan or brokerage. Most likely your just familiar/loyal to your current brokerage, just as i was with Ameritrade, because i asked the same question before i got started. So fees aside, the questios is, is it worth it to you? That depends on how you trade. An automated trader, trades while you go have fun (realistically when your at work). I'm a loan officer in So. California...... ( btw 800 789 0025 x25 if you need a home loan ) and i found Cool-Trade because i had to put in long hours and had/have no time to trade. So i will put it like this, if you think you know how to make money in the stock market but dont have the time to do it, then Cool-Trade is for you. Or you can use one of the default strategies that have a better return than most mutual funds. ~G
Do you have to "sign up for a year" or anything like that? I prefer to trade myself... however I don't trade over the summer but would consider a fully automated system for 3 months while on "vacation". Is there anyway to view the results for each strategy before sending in the $40/ month?
The top strategies are on the website www.cool-trade.com under strategies. They show their results, draw, ect. If you create a new strategy then you could run it in simulated mode instead of live. ~G
You arent obligated to sign up for a whole year...you can try it and if you dont like it, cancel. If you send them email... customersupport@cool-trade.com, they will answer any questions you may have quickly and probably more thoroughly than we can. Shana
Thanks. I did talk to support on the phone recently. I was just you asking the questions I forgot to ask! I'm out...
so for all of you that have tried CoolTrade...what you guys think? any feed back? any awesome strategies?? Shana
Ok, I've been testing it for about two weeks now. I put together a few personal strategies and let them run. Just to get a feel for the product so to speak. I am impressed in its ability, but disappointed in my personal lack of patience. Or should I say, due to what has become the instant gratification mode that we tend to have and expect, I wouldn't let the CoolTrade wait for the trades to play themselves out when they seemed wrong. I watched the market bounce around and I just panicked and interrupted trades all over the place. I found myself micro managing the product out of its profits. Basically, cutting, running, and guaranteeing myself losses. Yet in spite of my personal fear, CoolTrade constantly brought me back to profits. A few days ago I got a bit more serious in the setup. I put together a strategy and added a few key stocks to my watchlist. I started the software and intended to watch the happenings but had to leave for other stuff. At the end of the day it had made over $400. It followed it up with a $300 and then a $415 profit over the next two days. This on a $25,000 pool (just enough to clear the Pattern Day Trader requirement). Friday I expected the same results to happen. And this time I had time to watch. The open on Friday (June 2nd) started upward, then the poor jobs numbers came out. I watched the market tank and move bit to the negative. And I watched the product compensate for the bad news with short positions. The day ended with a profit also. By noon, CoolTrade had even eeked out a profit. Curiosity made me remove the safety net, for the afternoon. No miscue's by the product. Profit in spite of me again, CURSES! I have experimented rather extensively with a couple of different setups that CoolTrade provided and I was not too happy a camper. Seems that a couple of the settings are altered to provide a little more activity rather than a slower trading mode as comes in the "Conservative" profile. And it's not that the "Aggressive" setups are bad, they just have more free trading parameters than I would like. I guess it's more aggressive than I'd like. CoolTrade is not a holy grail by any means. But it's a rather good product to set and go! The right strategy and a balanced universe of stocks to work from and it seems that you could do well. You can customize and put in your own trading parameters and establish the rules of engagement to your own liking. Then step back and watch the emotionless application of your techniques. I have the setup on a server machine with lots of overhead in RAM (over 16gigs) and processor speed (quad 900MHZ's). During the market, the resources demand never went above 48% (on only one processor). The server was also streaming audio at the time. The version of Windows running on it is Server 2003. In the total live operation time, "No System Crashes!" The product is constantly polling, updating, and calculating. It operated flawlessly during my testing. Well, I should say there were two lockups. They happened as I was attempting to update the watchlist. Both happened around midnight when I was tweaking a profile for test. And both were quickly cleaned up by a Task Manager shut down of the application. Personally, I attribute the lockups to a sleepy guy trying to enter invalid stock symbols. I don't know that it didn't freeze but was merely asking, "What the Hell are you...." :eek: In the simulation mode, the product does everything that you'd do in a live trade. And the cost is very reasonable for what you get. Having been a software trainer for some years now, I can say that it is a tight product. There were no crashes of Windows due to its running. Next week I'll possibly take it from simulation mode to live. No before we go there....I am not a part of the company (wish I was though). I am not selling or receiving ANY compensation for this review. I am not a spectacular trader sitting at my table in my underwear, sipping an adult beverage, while my kids and wife lovingly talk about all of daddy's/hubby's free time and money. There are a few nice possessions in my ownership but they have nothing to do with any use of CoolTrade. No tear jerker story of how I went from homeless to mansion in two short years. I'm just a guy who looked at the product and said I think it works.
George. Curious how Cool-trade has worked out for you since you last posted here. Are the conservative strategies consistently profitable? Do you use any of your own? I was going to give it a try last summer but never got around to it.... possibly this coming summer though. Thanks. J