From IB TWS to

I have used IB TWS for years. I am considering moving a prop firm and so will have to choose another platform. I see Sterling as being highly reputed. I just wanted to hear some opinions about Sterling from prop traders. What do you like? What do you hate about it? How reliable is it during stress times - 2008 sep/oct, flash crash day etc. Thanks.

 

sterling is pretty good but their feed sucks.

using it with a seperate feed is recommended, unless you can get on a prop shop that has dedicated sterling servers (which is not as good as dedicated feed, but better than shared servers most firms have access to).

 

Hey Thanks. But what is dedicated sterling server and how is it different from shared servers? What would be an example of a dedicated feed as well?
Sorry if these are basic questions but then you are conversating with someone who has never traded stocks before and who has been with IB for most of the time.

 

You can't just connect your own data server to Sterling. The process is very expensive and very few firms have done this. When I spoke to Sterling they told me the data center connection to them could cost around $150K to set up. Sterling is not set up to just connect Activ or another outside vendor.

1245

 

1245 is right, that is why most firms operate on their shared infrastructure. however there is a big difference between them.

sterling shared infrastructure also has very low message per second limitations (orders per second + cancels per second <= 20), so if you're planning on doing a lot of cancel replaces you're better off with dedicated sterling infrastructure, or going somewhere else.

 

Thanks for the info. I wonder without reading from ET, it would have been so difficult/out-rightly impossible to get exposed to all these deep and tricky issues which platform vendors never tell you when you consider them.

If I may ask which platform do you use and can you name prop firms which have their own dedicated sterling servers?

 

Thank You. Which firms have setup their own connection to sterling?

 

Or you can look into a trading platform with a more roust data feed without 10,000 users spread over many countries around the world.

1245