If you search for "cooltrade" in the upper-right corner of this screen, and look at the authors name on the right, you can read all of the comments from others, like: http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&postid=1091364&highlight=cooltrade#post1091364 Look at a few of the CoolTrade accomplishments: 2007: Connected CoolTrade software to TD AMERITRADE accounts. 2007: TD AMERITRADE reduced trades fees to lowest in the industry for CoolTrade members only. Was opened to new users from Nov 2007 to Feb 2008. 2008: CoolTrade software free for TD AMERITRADE clients. 2008: Fully automated Jim Cramer's Action Alerts Plus! alerts. If you have a subscription to Jim Cramer's alerts, your CoolTrade software can now pick them up and using your rules, can buy/sell the security before most have even received and opened the alert in email. THIS AUTOMATION IS EXCLUSIVE TO COOLTRADE MEMBERS ONLY! CoolTrade continues to work to bring better deals and reduced trading fees, etc to the CoolTrade members. However, the best way to know if the software suites your trading style, is to subscribe and download the software. If you have a Windows Computer running Windows XP, then you can run the software. All of the talking and testimonials in the world cannot replace just running the software for a week! Good Luck! Ed
I'm a little late to this thread, so forgive the reply. I didn't see anyone posting after this post on the topic. I've only been using CT (with Interactive Brokers) for 6 months, so I am not as knowledgeable as those here using it for years. I can tell you that there are a few characteristics of the software to take into account: 1. It will only execute long/short strategies that you put into it. There is no "Make Lots of Money" button. 2. It makes market orders, not limit orders. 3. It tells your broker to execute the trade. What happens after that is up to your broker, client sw, etc. The broker side is without a doubt always the weakest link. 4. If you configure a strategy that would lose money if you followed that strategy manually, the autotrader will lose money for you with better precision! 5. It runs only on windows, as an installed client on systems like XP, 2003 server, Vista, etc. That said, there are many positives, including: 1. CT users have available to them about a dozen proven long or short strategies to use as "starter strategies". You can copy them into one of the 10 available strategy slots, use them as-is, or modify to suit. Each has been time tested to yield positive results. 2. Users can optionally share their strategies with others. This means that in addition to the stock/template strategies available to you day 1, you can also copy and modify hundreds of strategies that considerate users have decided to share with the community. 3. You can decide to only share with certain users, kind of like a 'friends list'. Some feel more comfortable with this kind of sharing instead of an 'all or nothing'. I use 2 accounts creatively: the first account is for testing/staging strategies, and the second is my real/public strategy. I only share my staging strategy with my real account, but I share my real account with everyone. I guess I don't want anyone to see my painting until it is done! 4. You can execute 1 long and 1 short trade strategy simultaneously. That all said, most all CT users average 10% profit/month, when averaged against several previous months-sometimes as much as a year. How much each person earns varies due ot the reasons above-no 2 strategies are the same. In fact, and this is strange, you will hear of people running multiple copies of the same strategy on multiple machines, and they yield different results. This is mostly due to the biggest variable-your broker. You can go to the home page and see the profits of some of the users sharing their strategies and statistics, but you should be aware of a few things before you make any judgments: 1. Some strategies trade lots of small stocks, and some trade relatively fewer large priced stocks (like me). I personally change my strategies fairly often. 2. To be on the home page you need to have not changed or even re-saved your strategy for at least 30 days. This is why all the ones you see are 30 days or over. As for me, my strategies (like everyone else's) fall in and out of the favor of the market. In the first week of May, though, I have done quite well with a strategy branch of development I've been running for a little over a month. Because I can't help but make small adjustments to my strategies, you probably will never see mine on the home page (30 days or more without a save/change). I do, however, make all my strategies available to others. It can't hurt me, and with luck someone will see a place for improvement and help me. You will also see Top Trader statistics on the home page. It was a big deal when I was the top trader for the first time, but it happens so often now I seldom even look anymore. I analyze every trade a lot more than most people, with complex spreadsheets. None of this is necessary, it is just my style. You wanted an actual user's stats. Let me see if this fits the bill: I set a conservative monthly (trade) profit goal for my traders of 8% (most do 10%), and as of the close of the market yesterday (Friday), I am 12.26% over my target profit for this month-and there are still 3 full trading weeks left in the month. My brokerage balance (not the amount of each trade) has gone up 12.9% since the month started. From another perspective, I am holding each trade (including overnight hours-not just when the market is open) for an average of 6 hours and 53 minutes. Trades have averaged 3.29% profit each. This is important, as the money invested needs to be as profitable as possible, as fast as possible, and stay in play as much as possible, in order to be effective. Longest trade: 95h54m00s at 7.375% profit Shortest trade: 2h20m00s at 4.036% profit Least profitable trade: bought PNC 5/6 2:28pm @ $46.9300; sold 5/7 3:12pm @ $43.241 (-7.881% profit) Most profitable trade: bought WYNN 5/4 12:39pm @41.7860; sold 5/5 9:38am @ $47.931 (14.680% profit) I know you additionally wanted several CT users to comment, so I'm sorry I can only supply the first one.