I am considering a move away from eSignal after a good few years. I am currently executing through IB. I have read consistently good reviews for NinjaTrader and Zen-Fire. I don't mind a little C# programming either. IB doesn't offer NT alongside ZF. I know of several brokers that offer NT with ZF, but they all seem to be the '$500 margin for day trading' crowd, something I'd like to stay well away from. Is there any broker that compares favourably with IB (conservative, capitalised, fast and competitive) but offer ZF with NT? Thanks. PS. I only trade ES.
Forgot to add: if there is no such broker and I have to stay with IB, what are my options for a reliable charting software that doesn't drop ticks during busy times? Retail software only, so CQG is out of consideration.
If 'cheap' is the primary concern, you can try IQfeed ($50 + assorted fees). Can't comment on quality, i never used them. As far as i am aware, IQfeed and esignal are the cheapest data-providers (non-broker). With IQ you will need compatible software like Neoticker or Ninjatrader, because they provide the datafeed only and do not develop a charting application of their own. In my opinion its a prudent thing to have a 3rd party datafeed, in addition to your brokers, anyways. If one of them has technical problems, you aren't left dead in the water.
If you are only trading futures, I don't see the need to be concerned if a broker offers $500.00 margins. You obviously understand the pitfalls of being overleveraged, so set your own personal margin requirements. IB is sort of a safe haven in the sense that your deposits are insured, whereas most brokers that offer the NT/ZF platform are strictly futures brokers and those depsits are not, to the best of my knowledge.( I may be wrong ). A more important question should be who the FCM is and Dorman, RCG are two of the most popular. Apparently they are well capitalized. Another option would be to just keep your account at IB and use their aggregate tick feed unless you feel the need for unfiltered tick data.
In light of recent discoveries with high frequency trading, and 5 millisecond trades average time for a auto trade software, trading server collocation next to exchange server, all the hoopla about ninja and zen fire, and other cool sounding names pretending to have fast execution looks bland to me now, since my ping time to any server in NY is avg 86 MS.. to think they could already trade 15 times! If you add execution times etc from any provider you looking at 500 millisecond , at that speed they traded your trade 100 times already! CRAAZZY!!
Big AAPL, I am not worried about controlling myself, but I wouldn't want my broker to be brought down by a bunch of irresponsible, over-leveraged traders.
The broker doesn't have your money. The CLEARING firm does. I'm sure any of the "$500 Brokers" would be happy to raise the margin to any amount you want. And what is the advantage of that? Personally, if the clearing firm doesn't have backroom in good enough shape to Risk control w/ a low margin, I don't want to have anything to do w/ them anyway.
My guess is that a bunch of overleveraged traders on the verge of blowout represent a greater threat to the brokerage house than to your individual account. As an IB, I am sure that it must constantly prove to it's FCM that it is conducting business in a responsible and profitable manner in order to keep it's relationship with said FCM. Also, IMHO, a low margin broker allows you to maintain a minimum deposit which reduces your risk in the event of a broker collapse. Let's face it, you wouldn't want to open an account to trade futures with 100K when you can achieve enough leverage with 10K, correct? One other thing, if someone could show me an instance where an electronic futures brokerage has actually blown out and swallowed individual deposits, I would like to see that so I can plan accordingly. I mean, we've all got to keep on our toes, right?