Not really. I didn't disguise it. I also don't think it harms anyone's credibility to point out that the emperor has no clothes. I think my comments were beneficial to the discussion. I am not attacking you as a person. I am criticizing you for presenting uninformed criticisms of the retail brokerage industry, while misrepresenting your level of knowledge. I know nothing else about you as a person, and I have nothing else to say about you as a person. Good day, sir.
The Best Daytrader Platform? ----------------------------------- The question does need qualifying, because the term daytrading is used by many people trading in dissimilar ways. One type of trading is when you are scalping the tick, which means you are making multiple trades each day basing your trades on time sensitive movements of the stock. Execution speed is critical for this type of trading. Another type of trading is when you take a position in a stock and hold it for several hours or even days. Usually trades are based on technical indicators. Execution speed is important, but not near as critical as scalping the tick. ------------------------------- The MarketMakers, specialists, trading brokers, and other savvy daytraders know that in order for them to trade effectively (scalp the tick) they have to be very fast to get fills or the stock price will move away from them too fast. I don't blame them for wanting an edge to the fastest executions, because the customer they're trading for usually expects a buy or sell very close to what the customer is expecting. I've read many advertisements claiming so-called "Direct Access to ECNs", but I am skeptical about the use of the term. How is this direct access implemented by the "Direct Access Broker" for you the remote trader. In other words, if you are trading from home on a DSL connections...where do your keystrokes/packets executing your trades go? Do your trades go immediately to the ECN, do they go to the Brokers remote office, do they go to the brokers wallstreet office, and just how are they routed? Just where and how do your trades travel to the ECN and how are they received and managed at the ECN? As I recall when I traded in the ProTraders trading room they had dedicated servers with T1 lines to the separate respective ECNs. How do I know this, because you could physically walk into their server room and see the servers, view the connections and see the screen setups to the ECNs. All in-house traders were on the in-house network and the respective ECN servers were accessed immediately and routed to the ECN's order servers in NewYork. The Broker had two full-time systems engineers to assure the computer systems were working and maintained as well. The manager would announce over the PA system the ECNs that were running slow, or down, and usually which ECN was best to trade if possible. This was a huge benefit to traders in our office. It wasn't uncommon for an ECN to be down periodically (usually just a few hours during the day at most), and the broker would make every effort to help route our orders. This often meant the broker was physically talking on the phone with respective trade contacts. The number of Brokers now with in-house trading rooms appear to have dwindled down significantly in the past few years. This is not good based on my experience for traders that scalp the tick during the day. The Brokers making claims of so-called "Direct Access to the ECNs" for the most part are not direct anything, because trades go to them first. What they do with the order information from there is....your guess or mine It is important to know how your orders are routed, managed and executed. You might actually be able to find out from an inside person at the brokerage or possibly the broker could give you a walkthrough. A walkthrough would probably be fine. The brokers for the most part well tell you just how orders are routed and managed, if you're having face to face conversations. The broker may not realize he is telling you information that is contrary to what the broker is advertising (Direct Access to ECNs). Daytrading is risky, but by careful research and asking the right questions you can narrow your choices for a daytrading broker. It doesn't seem to matter how close you get to the "Holy Grail" of a daytrading broker you'll still have tradeoffs. You may not like the commissions, the execution software, the feeds, etc. The probability for large financial losses is prominent in daytrading. IMO you should research, discuss, study, ask questions and make the best possible choices for a trading broker. You should also know precisely how you "plan to trade" and tailor your broker needs around how you "plan to trade". A friend of mine that traded with me at ProTrader drove 90+ miles each day to trade. He had traded with several other in-house brokers prior to coming to ProTrader. My friend said, " You have to get with the best possible in-house broker to trade like I do or you'll lose you grits and more". There are so few in-house trading brokers now. In 2001 in almost every major municipal area there were many in-house trading brokers. Traders then had a lot of choices among in-house trading brokers, which it appears we no longer have.
this what is eating at me... "The Brokers making claims of so-called "Direct Access to the ECNs" for the most part are not direct anything, because trades go to them first. What they do with the order information from there is....your guess or mine" more precisely... "What they do with the order information from there is....your guess or mine" so i guess WHO has the best record with scalping/swing trading for a remote broker-scottrade/e trade/cybertrader ETC ETC ???
----------------------------------------- I don't think Scottrade/etrade advertise direct ECN. I know Cybertrader used to have in-house trading rooms. I doubt seriously you'll ever find a true "direct Access to ECNs" unless you go to in-house trading. Principally, because as I previously mentioned that would mean you would circumvent the broker and go directly to the ECN. The broker might have dedicated servers in the trading office to the ECNs, but the only direct part would be from their brokers' server to the ECN. There will always be some lag for executions just because of connection speed and issues. Again, I wouldn't try to scalp the tick without trading with a very competent in-house trading broker. Then you should carefully study their systems to make sure they have dedicated servers with T1 or T5 lines directly to the ECNs. Swing traders can probably do fine with just about any in-house broker, and probably do fine with remote trading. Let's face it, the cost of running a remote trading operation is more profitable, less headaches, most problems can be easily swept under the rug. You can go just about anywhere on these forums and you'll read of all kinds of execution problems, markets being down or ???, ECNs being down or something all the time. In an in-house trading operation the room will rock with complaints when something is awry. I wouldn't be at all surprised if many remote brokers frequent these boards and do their best to disarm complainers by any methods possible. -------------------------------- Let's face it... liquidity in the markets comes from traders, and the more know-nothings and neophytes the more the wallstreet traders can extract from them. Dependent upon your "trading plan" you should carefully select the best broker to facilitate your trading. It is tough enough to succeed because of excellent broker support, and it is near impossible if you have to suceed in spite of broker support.
Of course orders have to be routed through the brokers servers so that margin requirements are checked before marketable orders are submitted to any exchange. I think the SEC requires brokers to publish routing reports for "smart routed" orders.
There are a a lot of people here who are ignorant of the facts, or living back in 90's. I have traded prop and remote. I use DAE, and see absolutely no difference in speed. My orders are executed in miliseconds, and I am remote. You can never compete with market makers, if you think so, you are fooling yourself. Playing games with market makers is for tape readers, which is a dying sport. You don't need prop firms for speed, or for low commissions. If anyone tells you differently they are lying, or they are amateurs. In house firms(today) are for traders who like company, or hand holding, or are trying to learn, or lack capitalization. I really don't care if you believe me or not; I already know everything stated above is factual.
How many trades (full in an outs) do you make in one day? There are many traders who don't need all the whistles and bells, but I do think those who do need the whistles and bells shouldn't be passed over with lies and half truths. It is too easy to lose a great deal of money very fast, especially if a trader makes a lot of daily trades without proper tools and broker situation. I disagree, you can compete with MM (execution speed), if you are in the right environment, with right tools, and right broker situation. Heck, you can run the 8 minute MA and track with them like another MM. I'm curious why posters keep talking about the past...the 90s, etc. There were large numbers of in-house trading rooms then and you could get great support. Those trading rooms are gone, and to my way of thinking that is a negative not a positve. The part about living back in the 90s is funny. If things were better why wouldn't you want the better? Sometimes new or newest is not the best. I don't think it is right to draw such broad based conclusions about trading to tell other people, especially if the other people are new to trading. Losing a couple a grand a day ain't a big deal when you're trading big and often, but to a new trader it's a heck of deal. IMO, your quoted comments above would make more sense, if you'd have said...
Wow.... If you haven't heard of Assent ( or their Hammer/Anvil platform ) then you must not be in the mix. http://www.assent.com/about_us.htm