Yes I am generally a happy IB customer and recommend them to all my friends who wish to do more than just a passive investment. My ceiling is more of a risk management than anything else. I target 10% DD generally expecting to hit 20% once in 5 years. This might be called target volatility in the industry. In re to IB - I could have reduced volatility for the majority of the time by throwing more strategies in the mix but don't believe that would have reduced Max DD which is important to be aware of. There is always a chance that all strategies being down simultaneously.
Yes, exactly. I am a futures trader and margins are pretty bad. I can imagine it's pretty much the same with stocks. IB is pretty much the only option for a retail Canadian in terms of execution for someone using systems...
pretty much only option in the US if you want an API and dont have a few million bucks for your own exchange seats
Yes, IB for intraday, Norgate for EOD. My execution software knows how to work with both and combines them into continuous series in memory. IB is sufficiently "real-time" for me plus I don't need intraday historical for execution purposes.
%% LOL; That person may not want really help.{But Dave Ramsey says everyone has a relative like a crazy uncle that belongs in the basement} Strange news, i read somewhere, that some people were making a new car payment rather than a mortgage, that way\ they could still have a place to stay.
Interesting. Why do you use two different data sources? I use IB for intraday quotes on US stocks and then download historical data (i.e. EOD) for the same stocks from IB when the exchanges in the US are closed (thus at night time). As the exchanges are closed at that time does it not matter to me that this download takes several minutes (in my case: 7 minutes for 225 tickers). What makes the Norgate EOD data more useful for you?
I use Norgate for backtesting. So to match live executions with backtest as close as possible I have to stick with it. Eg. if exit should be triggered based on previous days' OHLC Norgate is the logical choice. IB is not in the historical data business so there is only so much trust I put in what they offer in that sense. Many moons ago I've been using IB for discretionary trading and noticed now and then their historical chat will be incorrect or simply unavailable. Perhaps they changed a data partner since but I sure won't put my money on the line to find out. Especially since all is coded now and I'm paying for Norgate for unique backtesting features regardless.