Good points Hoi, exactly my thoughts. The datapath between human eyes and brains and the efficiency of the information presented is far more important than the path between human finger and exchange. Also, the ease with which one is able to change plans and adapt to the fast world is the most important feature; compared to that pure dataspeed is just a technical detail, in most cases. 5Pillars has in recently in several post mentioned his problems with IB that made him move over to other platforms, for executions, data and trade frontend. Although I'm willing to accept that there are better providers out there than IB, at a price, I would be curious what these issues were. Many new users use these forums to make up their mind and it would be sad if they get the wrong bias by repeatedly hearing one message. 5P is somehow suggesting that IB is not really fit for trading futures. I think this is a false message. Ursa..
5P just found IB unfit for his consumption......it is not necessarily unfit for others consumption.......you have made a good point. and we all know TWS has its issues at times.......... http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/forum...r=&sortfield=lastpost&perpage=20&pagenumber=2
Sure, that's up to you of course. It would be nice next time to hear some real issues instead of some general 'we all know that...' attitude. Hmm, yes we 'all' know that. But we don't use TWS itself of course, do we? We use a front-end like ButtonTrader of Ninja. I hardly ever see TWS, only when I start it up and minimize it immediately. The TWS API does a very decent job and is, certainly seen as a retail product, which it originated as, a great development. On top of this, I think ButtonTrader doesn't even use the TWS API itself for order placement, but goes directly to IB by the FIX servers' interface. The API is used for getting datastreams I think (Hoi may know more about this). You can't get any faster than that. May I ask what front-end did you use when you were still at IB? And what kind of trouble did you run in to? Ursa..
To Dandxg: I looked into ZG (Gold ECBOT) yesterday, and was at first very disappointed in the ticker (no volume, no nice plot of the tickchart, so not suitable for scalping)....but then I learned on the ECBOT website that ZG is not traded in the front month (August or September), but in December !.....my bad...I didn't know. This ZG-december has a decent volume, and volatility and gives a nice tradable tickchart ...it is not as volatile as ER2, so trading(scalping) it with IB will give no problems at all...I did not trade it yesterday because ECBOT (the exchange itself) went down, and I have not enough knowledge of the Gold-market yet (as illustrated by the fact, I did not know that trading is done in the December-contract), but I will follow it more closely now. Thanks for pointing me to ZG, it can be a nice addition to the set of tradable futures.
That is good to hear....that seems like a possible better order execution speed set-up. I only used the TWS without a front-end (what is it....booktrader?). My main problems were breakage in connectivity at random and lag with the order entry platform at times. During my evaluation others were experiencing the same type of problems, and I was of the impression that maybe IB was growing too fast for their hardware at the time (growing pains maybe). My whole IB experience was just flat and I decided to not spend any more time looking at their product....just was not for me.
I would say 'absolutely' but of course it is a matter of taste and demands. ZT is quite flexible and is is a way a power-version of the DOM/Booktrader enclosed with TWS. You can build flexible strategies for each instrument and click and adjust them while running the DOM. Just like TWS it uses a orderline screen as main-window, also for order-entry and the DOM as a detailed, extra view. All this can be done with BT as well but to me BT has the advantage that the DOM, which is the actual Button-grid from which the name comes, is much better in allowing quick intuitive changes and preventing mistakes. Also the DOM/grid is not seen as a nice extra to the quote/order screen, no, the Button-grid is the main interface. I never look at the quote-grid anymore. More important, strategies are build around ticks, instead of values, so it is easy to copy strategy templates to other instruments; 3 ticks have a value of 3 in YM but only 0.3 in ER2. In ZT strategies are expressed as 0.3 or 3, in BT as 3 ticks. Furthermore, I have the feeling that the engine under the hood of BT is a exceptional piece of work. It seems to be an actual order-server in itself; eg. orders are not just relayed to the broker (IB) but it actually keeps guard whether the order will be executed and takes action when needed. When using it I really have the feeling of delegating a very stressful part of my trading to a helping machine that takes care of the gory details. When you start using it, at first trading gets even more boring but it allows you to concentrate on the important stuff of your style. To me that is very important because my 'being in the zone' is very easily broken by little hiccups in the execution. And last-but-not-least, the guy(s) behind all this seem(s) to have a genuine technical interest in their software and years of very thorough experience with it and with IB. It is not a product that has to be sold, it is a piece of machinery that has to work under all circumstances. To me that is maybe the most important aspect to it. All cars look alike but only some are really built to take you through a 'desert storm'. Ursa..
The technical fact is ZeroLine Trader offers both views of the strategies, either in ticks or values.
Sorry, I hadn't noticed that possibility. I never have actually tried ZT in real trading, it was just part of the trial collection I went through. I guess I should have made that clearer. I think that ZT is a very good and serious product for the purpose it sets as its goal, being a solid order/strategy entry interface. Ursa..