Hi I've been trading from work, but I started a new job and can't access my broker through the firewall. Would like recommendations for a broker that offers connectivity through standard ports, or better stilll, a way to circumvent the firewall. thanks
Who is your broker? some of the larger ones have a web version of their trading platform that is accessible through the http port which typically isn't blocked. The one I use doesn't have the same bells and whistles but its usually just as stable as the regular platform, until it goes wrong.
another way around the firewall is to access via your smartphone - i know not ideal b/c the screen is smaller but w/ the increasing size of smartphones it's less of a prob. just use the broker's app.
In my case, I've rooted my Android, and run it as a hotspot for my laptop w/o having to pay extra to the cell phone company. From there, I have normal Net access for my laptop. Another, more complicated solution is to have a machine, preferably outside the company's firewall, say at home or a provider like Rackspace or Amazon AWS. Configure SSH to listen on port 80 or 443 on your home machine. Then create an SSH tunnel from your work machine to your home machine. As part of the config, add port-forwarding rule(s) to connect local port(s) on your work machine to your broker. So, as a example, to use broker's app X, that needs to connect to www.brokerX.com port 9777, you would configure the tunnel so that address and port 127.0.0.1 port 9777 on your work machine connects to www.brokerX.com port 9777 through the SSH tunnel to your home machine. You would then configure your app to connect to 127.0.0.1 port 9777. It's complicated, but works like a charm once you figure it out...