I'm getting back into trading after about ten years. I have spent the last year practicing scalping the spy and would like to know if someone feels like there are brokers to recomend or to avoid for this type of trading. It seems like the reviews on brokers are as confuseing as they are helpfull. If I could also ask the community here if they think that Tradelog software is necessary as I like the idea but they don't support some the the brokers Like Cobra that I have interest in. any help would be greatly appreciated
"Your Broker is not your friend." -- Arthur Levitt, former SEC Chairman. IMO typical retail brokers trading software and data feed is too slow for scalping. Also, very difficult to scalp profitably as a retail trader. But your mileage my differ depending on your definition of "scalping." There was a thread Re: scalping a while back, and it turned out that there was no clear consensus on what is meant by scalping. My own definition was trading for a few ticks profit. For example, ES has 4 ticks per point. A retail trader gives up two ticks on every round trip. Extremely difficult, therefore, for a retail trader to be profitable trading ES for less than a point.
I'd look to light speed or cobra if I had it to do over. Some of depends on your style, if your scalping those are good choices, if your swing trading, and don't mind a little more fees, and want nice charts look at Trade Station however call them and prod them about fees.
interday Bill I can't for the life of me figure out what collation means? To all others that responded I want to thank you for your advice. I want to find a platform that doesn't try to be all things to everyone. I don't trade currency or futures I might if I learned enough about them to attempt it but for now all I want is to trade the spy its what I feel most comfortable with. Thanks again to all.
I use Tradelog with Interactive Brokers and it downloads my trades and pairs them up quickly and accurately. It does a good job and saves me a lot of time.