ETG recently left Speer Leeds to switch to Instinet clearing. I've heard that, overall, ETG's traders dislike Instinet's Gr8Trade (portal) software. Are there any ETGers here that can compare the two patforms?
I am not an ETG trader but have traded on the gr8 trade. I am guessing if they do not like it is because it is not set up that well for traders who do a lot of the traditional NY trading like imbalance orders. Both are rather unreliable and slow for execution speed. I know there are some people out there that think that all NYSE trading platforms are basically the same for speed but it is not true. I have recently talked to several ex-redi and ex-gr8trader traders about the difference once they switched to a new firm software like Hammer at Andover and all of them commented on the differences in speed and execution. Just for disclosure I do trade at Andover, but this was not meant to be an advertisement but more to pass on the info from other traders that have recently switched trading platforms. By the way dafugginman trades at ETG so you might ask him.
I have a couple of close friends working at ETG. I personally trade on Redi+, but I think I know enough about gr8 to say that as of right now Redi is still a better platform (I'm talking about trading NYSE). The major issue with gr8, (they say they are working on them) is the slow quotes. There is no openbook yet. You can't see your open orders on the Level II. There are no openning indications. Couple of recent improvements for gr8 are the addition of commissions into the daily p/l, also the choice of assigning a separate color to the NYSE quotes. Gr8 has better charts than Redi. Also you can put bullets directly from the montage. Recently Redi added the ARCA's smart routing to NASD, BSE and other exchanges. That was a big disadvantage for Redi traders. The major improvement from changing to gr8 is the reduction in commissions, over 25 % compared to the old rates.
i work at ETG and still use redi+.....no one in the NYC office has switched yet, and from what i understand, some are using gr8trade for charting, but very few, if any, are using it's platform for trading. so, i don't know where you are getting your information from (not that it isn't true, but i don't know anyone using it). we are waiting for the new version due out in february, which will get data directly from the exchanges like all good plaftforms do (not comstock like gr8trade currently does). more mouse friendly, indications, imbalances, open book, etc, etc, etc will all be in the new version. i told them i would not switch unless these features are included, and they said they won't force anyone to switch, confident people will switch on their own. bullets are integrated, which alone will be a step up. i haven't used anything other than redi+, so can't compare. but, i can tell you the stability of redi+ is absolutely horrendous, freezing, slowness, outages, stuck orders, position monitor not updating, etc, etc. etc. . if i thought about it for a few minutes, i could easily come up with a handful of redi+ tech issues that have cost me maybe 10k or so in the last few months. the most recent was a few weeks ago, when i had maybe 5 orders, each in the thousands, and during one of redi+'s infamous outages, it wouldn't tell me whether they were open or filled for a 5-10 minute period. i couldn't tell i whether i was long 2k or short 3k of a particularly wild stock. i went from being up over a grand to down over 1500 in this stock. that's bullshit. if it's reliable, and faster, like our president keeps telling us, i'll be happy with the switch. he swears it is already faster than redi+ because the data is stored on our servers, and will be even more so once they switch data sources. i anticipate an adjustment period, as anyone should. if you ask me in a couple months, i'll give you my honest opinion.
ETG Smithtown office started testing gr8 several months ago. There is at least another office Iâm aware of that has traders using gr8. Smithtown traders submitted the list of (I believe over 100) features that they want to be changed on gr8. And all these changes are promised to be implemented. Except for the Smithtown, traders in all the other offices have the choice between Redi and gr8 for now. Regarding Redi+ stability, it did suck big time during the last 3-4 weeks. I had the same problems you talked about and Iâm sick of it too. For position freezes I would recommend you use the "average price" window, it's a more accurate way to see your position.
i just wanted to point out that redi+ had yet another major outage today. at one point i had 13 orders that i didn't know the status of, this for over an hour. i had 4k in my account, which turned out to be inaccurate. a separate order for 3000 shares, which i got a fill on.......an hour later. of course, there was an hour where i could've gotten out with a $500 profit, instead of a $500 loser. so, redi cost me 1000 today. redi's reliabilty is terrible - end of story.
so did gr8trade! yesterday was the futures , quotes and lost orders. Today it not so gr8trade lost orders and have bad quotes again. is gr8trade ever going to work? I would trust redi before gr8.......i guess i have to call bright
to update: SLK took on both the buy and the sell, putting me flat on the position. it's not the 500 profit i could've had, but i'll definitely take it over the loss of 500. at least they did the right thing there, for me anyway.