Since, we did not erupt in a troll thread. Based on what you have said (so far),I would like to recommend Tradovate for these reasons: 1) A better platform. Do a demo! The company was founded by the same guy who built OEC with the highly successful and long lived OEC Trader. That was a well built platform. He definitely knows what short term futures traders need. Make sure you can run your tools/methods. Incidentally, Tradovate has provided add-on functionality for the most popular tools like Jigsaw, Bookmap and OFA for additional costs. I am not saying you can make money with these tools. But again, the most modern tools with the most modern technology... 2) Costs. Based on your average lot size, I highly recommend you make a spreadsheet out of your average daily volume. People have no business scalping if they can't make these calculations. The $100 a month is an easy hurdle for 3 round turn lots a day in broker commissions. And, that is not including free data for 1 CME exchange. See if they can provide your favorite exchange for free. 3) Margins. Let's not even discuss this. You can google this info. 4) Mobility and ease of access. Best of Luck. Don't ask this question on ET again as you can start a war.
Right, but then he links to this strategy, which clearly isn't the ES. https://collective2.com/details/98408819 So if he is trading the VXX or XIV, where ticks are now pennies, maybe 4-6 cents is completely acceptable. I have no idea since I've never watched this. I only know how the ES and NQ move. Also, now that he has mentioned its market orders, and there is a delay of seconds, then I'm not sure if I would call this slippage. I would consider slippage to be that either a stop is triggered at certain price but actually fills much further away, or seeing a bid/ask and upon hitting the market order, getting filled for much higher than what you actually saw was the bid or ask price. When you add in the fact that 5 seconds go by between when the order wants to be placed, and yet is actually placed (as a result of all the hoops it has to go through from C2), then for me, this isn't slippage in the technical sense but a delay.
Yep. And again, "thin markets" -- if you program without taking IB's default of going with *any* valid price, if yours is not, you get tagged. Not IB's fault. The coder has to know their market, *and* their vehicle.