looking for the best daytrade platform [1] DIRECT ACCESS! [2] Great charts [3] Afterhours shorting/Trading-no time delays-i.e. 4:15 9:15 shite [4] complex order types [5] routing assign [6] reliable [7] inexpensive [8] reliable [9] honest [10] reliable have already traded scottrade and see how they steal your money by the way they route and execute your orders and biggest of all game you/trade against you ecspecially on low volume-so i am looking for my new home- i was thinking cybertrader-but-schwab is going to do that platform in all the CT boys/girls will be shopping for a new platform soon themselves-they will be just like ST. AT. ET. so where are the experts on this subject? let er rip!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Interactive Brokers. You wrote that you wanted to hear from an expert. But I am not claiming to be an expert.
Trading with a broker in a trading room is the ONLY WAY to go for daytrading IMO. You've gotta have direct access to ECNs and I mean direct. Most inhouse brokers provide excellent service, because they dedicate servers to it. When you hit that buy/Sell key you want execution fast and in-house trading is the best way to accomplish fast order execution. You'll always get executions faster than the remote traders this way. You'll also find the ECNs connections can go down, island etc., and that's when you're in a trading room. You'll know it quickly because there are so many traders continually trying to get executions. They'll start screaming very fast when they're not getting executions. You'll never know it trading remotely, because they ain't gonna send you a letter or give you a ring. In most trading rooms they have the ability to facilitate trades during system down times more effectively and competently than you'll ever do remotely. Some have direct phone lines to clearing houses to accomplish this. There are times when one ECN might be down for hours, then trades have to be facilitated through another ECN. This is also usually well managed with an in-house trading room. It is tough enough to be successful in this business with the best tools, and everything working right. Little tweaks and peanut issues can cost you thousands... very fast. If you're going to swing trade or holder longer term positions and you can watch that Level II screen peel away your profits and it doesn't bother you when you bang on that buy or sell key and get no execution... then you might be well suited for remote trading. Trading remotely should be a last resort, if you want to be successful in the daytrading business. i.e., making money off short term intraday movements in a stock, holding nothing overnight.
I checked the date on domineaux's post, and sure enough it was today. Sure had me fooled, I thought I was looking at a post from 1996.
Well, you aren't too far off. I quit trading in August 2001 when the trade regs were changed to 25K maintained account balance and 4:1 margins. The in-house brokers were all stringent to follow that policy and now I notice things have changed quite abit since many of the brokers have created some workarounds. I'm not sure exactly how it's done, but I'll research it until I understand it. I traded with Protrader using the GR8 software and the darn software kept letting me violate the reg T. I was constantly having to replenish my account to meet the calls. I got paid zip interest so I was always moving money in and out of the account. When the trading requirement went to 25K I knew I'd probably wind up pushing 3 times the money into the account constantly to keep up the the reg T shortfalls. During the past month I've been taking another look at trading the intraday as before. Things have changed for sure. Now trade commisions (appear to be) about half the price I paid then. I experienced a myriad of issues trading in-house, and by gosh if I'd traded at home I would have lost my lower extremities. The in-house support was critical. The darned ECNs and Island would go down without warning and if the Protrader didn't have broker sitting on each row with a direct line to get executions for traders they'd have lost all their traders. As it is the pressure must have been pretty tough, because Protrader sold out shortly after I hung it up. Don't get me wrong... I wasn't a world class trader, just one of the boys banging the keys doing a pretty decent job of staying in the black most of the week. If your response was a kind of sarcastic putdown that's fine with me. If the situation is nowhere near what it was then...I might get excited about trading again. I sure as heck am not going into it again like the neophyte I was with my money in my hand. The greatest learning lessons are acquired from experience, and learning from others willing to share. I sure as heck won't forget my previous trading experiences. I traded over my DSL connection at home with DLJ, A.B.Watley, and lost on many trades. I even tried the Protrader GR8 software to the local Protrader office and lost money, because of execution issues. Every trade from home still had to go to a server that connected to the ECNs over the DSL connection and it just wasn't fast enough. My connection speed is still the same today as it was then. When I traded with Protrade In-house that connection to the ECNS was like a direct wire to the server...bam you could get off trades ahead of the pack time after time. The only way I see that could be improved would be if home traders had a direct connection via the DSL to the ECNs. I wouldn't think that was possible for security reasons and for broker accounting and clearing. It won't bother me for anyone to straighten out my thinking on the current situation. As it stands now... I'll trade intraday only with a competent in-house broker. I'll do a few trades from home, but I'll never try to trade hard and fast intraday from home... as I see it now.
thanks for the insight-yes from home is rough-have to trade on earnings and news othwise MM are tough on ya-i've lost a little-hopefully no more- was hoping that there was a remote system like cybertrader to upgrade to but cybertrader is selling out- what made CT good schwab is dumping out of the program ,as they assimilate into schwab
Things haven't changed, they are on a different planet. Why would you dispense advice based on ancient evidence? Very bad. PS Anyone that daytrades now and blames execution issues is a dreamer. In fact, I'll wise you up. The problem is , execution is TOO GOOD for everyone.
Stock777 - I'm not trying to mess with anyone. In fact, I just relate my experience to enable a better discussion in order to get a better handle on the current trading environment. In response to your posting I'd appreciate if you would explain: Execution is too good for everyone? If executions are that good... maybe you explain just how and where to trade for that efficiency? Do you mean there is so much liquidity you can short or buy at will? Do you mean the speed from an at-home connection is fast enough to the ECNs you can effectively compete with the Market Makers for fills when a stock is running? If you think my previous postings are so out of line, maybe you could explain. Serious, I'm not arguing I've been away long enough I know I've missed alot. I haven't daytraded since Aug 2001 so I don't count myself any kind of expert. I just know what I experienced as a daytrader, making 30-50 trades aday on the NASDAQ. -----------------------------------