Echo was formed by a couple of our ex-traders, who saw an opportunity to try to duplicate our business model. Their main guy, Jeff, has been a good trader in the past, and went out and raised some money to get started. There have been a couple of other firms that have done the same thing. They have actually helped us (Bright Trading) by motivating us revise our business model in such a way as to maintain our lead in the industry. The similarities go right down to our old pricing models (new ones start in January) all the way through to the training they implemented. We say, the "more the merrier" - there are plenty of new potential traders out there that need help getting started in the industry. What I don't particularly care for is the way that some of their more aggressive people have tried to "raid" our traders, something that is frowned upon by the better firms. I don't think this was done with the 'OK' of the management (at least I hope not), and of the few that went there, most have returned to us. Healthy competition is great, and all traders (new and old) should have several options available to them. Use common sense, and base your decision on the same criteria you would for any business relationship. Good Luck and Good Trading to all! We have posted some rough guidelines on our website at (www.stocktrading.com)
Is it true that Echo doesn't charge a haircut fee? Also, I understand that Bright holds 25% of your profits until the end of the year. They say that they are required to do that by the SEC or someone like that. Is Echo not under the same restrictions?
Does Echotrade provide a way to enter trades with a computer program. I mean using an API link or something?
Just checked out "Why do serious professionals choose Bright Trading" on your web site. I still don't know why they do. Technology smology. REDI+ sucks. Plain and simple. It offers no competitive edges in terms of features. All it is is a pretty face. And how many outages has REDI+'s overtaxed servers had this year? What kind redundancy are you talking about????? Don't make me laugh...I just ate. One more thing. Bright's costs are no better than any of several other firms all offering sub-1 cent commissions. Pricing used to be Bright's only advantage besides capital. With today's competition, now Bright has just one advantage left: offering capital intensive traders money to burn. And yes of course, this is an alias. And yes of course, I have an agenda...the truth...which I can't find much of in all your "Bright Trading commercial" posts. Just my opinion Donny...
Hmmm, I think it's very hard to give simplistic answers to problems you may ecounter with direct access software. I can't answer for Bright or Echo,but I do think REDI and Spear, Leeds & Kellogg have decent systems & software. There are four major direct access order excution platforms REALTICK,REDI+, TRADECAST & Cybertrader. I believe ECHO uses VTS, which I hear is quite a good system if it is set up properly. In terms of share volume REDI is the largest direct access software system . The executions on REDI+ are dependent on many factors including your introducing brokers network(if you trade in house), the amount of RAM on your computer, the bandwidth of your connection to REDI, NASDAQ related problems(Selectnet & SOES) as will as your internet access provider if you are a remote trader. Sure you will have slowness once in a while on high volume days and at the opening, but this is a problem common to all direct access software. One of our top traders trades on the API REDIFIX and gets executions on ECN's in less than >200 ms(thats 200 milliseconds!). The reason for the fast executions has more to do with network connectivity, than with the REDI+ software. REDIFIX(API) works great if your network is set up properly and you have techs in house(I'm not a tech) who can troubleshoot systems properly and setup your network. REDI+ will work well most of the time and will have problems occasionaly like most direct access software systems. REDI is one of the largest direct access sofware providers I believe , because REDI+ is decent software. REDI+ updates a new version of their software every three months. We could switch to another direct access software provider, but REDI works well for us and all direct access software will occasionally have problems. Gene Weissman Lieber & Weissman Sec.,L.L.C. gweissman@stocktrade.net
i understand your feelings to having other firms "raid" your traders but i think you might want to define "raid". If one of your managers is responsible for "recruiting" several very large traders from ETG, but you are not "physically" there to do so i guess you wouldn't consider yourself guilty of the same crime, but you still get the same results. how do you think Kanter feels about you guys????? isn't this manager who successfully recruited these BIG trader's "raiding"? my point is be very careful when you start throwing stones!
Hey guys lets keep this on subject. Want to talk about Bright than find a Bright thread or start another one. Buttermilk sorry Didn't see your post. Yes ---Echo's management is getting swamped. That's one of the reasons I was made Co-manager for this office so that I can take some of the workload off them. Email me if you have questions. I'm happy to help. YOu can write to Echotrade's order router through FIX interface. A simple API solution should be out in a month. So to answer Protrader's question -- yes rtharp