Order entry and trade management are much easier and more intuitive, but such products also have features that don't exist in TWS. Take simulated stops for example. Say you're long the ES with a stop-loss at 1025.00. In TWS, as soon as 1025.00 is hit you are gone. But with a front-end you could program it such that only if the bid volume drops below a certain level at 1025.00 it takes you out, or only if the ask volume is say 3 times the bid volume, it takes you out. Your 1025.00 stop-loss becomes an "intelligent" order that will only trigger if the market really is weak at that level. The benefit is obvious, ...suppose 1025.00 is hit but only a few contracts trade (maybe a fake-out new low) and then immediately trades higher again. Your "intelligent" stop-loss kept you in the trade whereas the plain vanilla type would have taken you out. If it turns around and hits your target maybe you just netted a $200.00 gain instead of a $100.00 loss. That's just one example but other features abound. Even without 'clever' features, just the ease of use factor alone (point and click) is worth the money IMO.
The API with docs gets automatically downloaded when you get the Protech program. Unfortunately you have to be an account holder to get the program. I don't think I can post it since they have all kinds of NDA's just to get the program. But trust me it's easy and I believe it's quicker than TWS. TWS is pretty slow putting in orders I believe because it's JAVA. This appears to be a C++ APP. The API comes with a dll interface for C++ an .OCX and .BAS file for visual basic and and .ELD for tradestation
John , a question. Let's say you had es position you bought @ 1049. You had a stop of 1059, this is saved at globex. Your computer crashed or there was a power failure, when you open Ninja Trader again will all your positions be shown ? I ask cause yesterday I had a short with a buy stop on another api. Computer crashed and when I started up the buy stop was not there and it is not on IB. I had interuptions and forgot there was a buy stop and I was stopped out and lost a bundle just for 0.25. This really pissed me off why all open orders are not displayed after a circumstance as this.
Anyone else here have any lost trade problems with JTrader and RCG as the clearing firm (through AdvancedFutures)...I know of a few already? Thanx! Chris
I just came across this site. They advertise 1/2 cent and no ecn pass throughs. Also have emini futures and options. Certainly looks interesting from the price standpoint, but they have no bullets, so I will not be using them. http://www.tracktrade.com/
One note about this company. They have a $99.00/mo platform fee but you get AIQ charts for that. This fee is waived with >250RT's of futures. Also you need a minimum 30k initial opening deposit per their telephone support who I just phoned, yes, even for Futures. This also is the Mytrack/trackdata...group of companies. Michael B.
I second that. Ironically, until May 2001 it used to be possible to access all the regional exchanges and Nasdaq Intermarket for listed stocks via ARCA. This changed when IB decided to block all external routing capabilities of ARCA and REDI in favor of their own SMART routing.
Anyone using these guys? Do they self-clear? I recall their CEO got caught in some kind of scandal where he had margined huge amounts of his own stock or something. I used the Track data system, the predecessor to MyTrack, for a couple of years and it was great. The options display was excellent. MyTrack was kind of a lowend type package so I went elsewhere. I do recall the AIQ charting sucked compared to whatever version of TradeStation was available then. Has it improved? And how do they calculate the commission volume? When they say 100k shares of stock , does that mean a buy and sell of 1000 shares equals 2000 shares?
I do not use them......sorry. I just was curious about their Futures so I called them on their 800#. So I will leave your question to the others here. Michael B.