Thanks for starting this thread - funny, I just today asked Questrade for the 10,000th time about their "plans" to upgrade their platforms - which they said they would do last year when Cybertrader was dropped. As usual, nothing happening, and I've totally given up. I'm about to open an account with thinkorswim. Can previous posters explain these comments: - Twinky - what did you mean that their platform is decent but "functionality" is poor? What do you mean by "functionality"? That it's slow? Doesn't execute well? - also, someone said that thinkorswim canada's future is in doubt. I'm aware of the Ameritrade takeover. Nobody knows what that will mean, but do you really think that the Canadian branch might be closed? By the way, thinkorswim told me last week that RRSP's and TFSA's will be coming out within a few months ...
they've been saying that it will come out "within a few months" for a while already... the truth is, nobody knows, and now with the acquisition by TD, there's less chance of happening...
First off thanks for all your comments, i wasn`t expecting much more than a sarcastic response along the lines of move to the States you bloody Canuck So thanks guys Im looking primarily for stock trading in mind. Questrade said the same to me... but no fucking way im waiting for their word to do get something accomplished, they couldn`t even get my commission straight.... I looked into Jitney, they use platforms from a huge variety of people. The only one worth looking at is the Realtick which Terra Nova said that thats the only one they could refer me to since they are partnered and the fact that they do not allow Canadians to sign up. Terra Nova also told me that they have absolutely no plans in the future for Canadian citizens, even though the lead guy for new account openings told me he receives a huge amount of Canadian interest every day. Im really steering away from jitney because of the prices. Thats right TD just acquired Think Or Swim if you didn`t already know. Sign up with thinkorswim and go as far as getting the paper trade. That way you dont pay for it and you can test drive the platform. I found it very rigid. It may be good for options and futures though. I dont like the way windows and order exction is setup and the charts are in set grid formations, order entry is small and poorly layed out. Download and see what you think though. I just sent a request to try Pro Trades platform, i just tried their standard one which runs Omni Pro, and again, its nothing special at all. in fact everything you want to display (charts level 2 etc) is a tab in your windows bar, instead of one application and windows within it. This makes it very messy and hard to manage.... Ill let you know if they let me take the other platform for a test drive and if its any good.
IB is great, just use another front end like ninja trader. BTW, its not true that they don't care when their platform have a problem. It happen to me 2 months ago and they promptly refund what I had lost because of the downtime. If you know what you are doing, IB is a no brainer for canadian.
What about tradefreedom? commissions from 9.95 or better for higher volume. I use them for our RSP accounts. Then there's Disnatdirect. they have a free tyler bollhorn course.
There is no where else to go... For Canadian Pro Traders... Because if you do 100,000 stock trades/year... NOTHING can compete with the lowest fees. If the OP doesn't like TWS... Then build a custom FIX platform you do... And if you that's out of your league... Then it really doesn't matter what platform you use.
Were not discussing fees, were discussing performance. fees are a factor but if i have a powerful platform then i wouldn't mind paying for it...
TradeFreedom is a joke. My mother wouldn't use them. Literally!! She wanted to try some trading on her own but she's of an era where she believes her money is only safe in the big banks (I know, I know, but she's my Mom). Anyhow, we learned that Scotia (was it Scotia, I think so, one of the majors anyhow) had purchased TF so she opened an account there. The employees were so clueless that she closed the account after a month - continuous outages which they couldn't explain and she knew more about order routing from talking to me than the employees did. The software is for kids.
Well, Pro Trade did give me access to that other platform, its called WEX - Wolverine Execution Services. http://www.tradewex.com Once again nothing special, charts suck.... Im starting to really just lean towards ninja trader e signal. Does anyone know of anyother front end software that just replaces the brokers default platform?