I have an account with IB, and I am thinking of moving it to TS For there software. But I am worried about how reliable there Trading platform is. Any comments..
FWIW-I started with TS and switched most of my trading to IB because: 1. I trade mainly equities and IB has a much better list of shortable stocks, about twice as many last time I looked. 2. IB's Universal Account is great, 3. IMO, all serious traders need 2 accounts as the day will come that one of them is down, as has happened a couple of times with TS already. This way you are able to offset trades or risk. I do keep a TS account to get the better pricing, and now it is free with the better deal they recently started. DS
TS software charge is $0 for moderately active traders (e.g., 25000 shares/month or 100 contract/month, etc.). A few other things one should consider: -Commission structures for TradeStation Securities an IB for equities and options are practically very similar. -TradeStation securities' customer service is better than IB's. -Margin rate is better for IB. -IB's trading platform is better. -TradeStation Software is definitely far better. -You don't need to integrate any 3rd party software to back test or to do automated trading with TradeStation Securities.
I also keep accounts with IB and TS. I have 95% of my trading activity with IB and use TS mainly for charting and strategy. I trade with TS just enough to avoid fees. TS is a great platform for charting (the best, IMHO), but they have a lot to learn as brokers. IB is a better broker in almost any category. Better quotes (TS lags behind IB), faster execution (just an impression), more markets, better margin rules (see my previous post on this issue) and yes...even better customer service.
Tradestation is better in all aspects, excepts slower quotes somtimes, but that won't affect you if you are not a scalping for points. I believe with increased members due to free Tradestation now, resulting increased subscription to exchange through them, they should enhance their connection to exchnages.
Best of both worlds is to use the TS software and automate trading through IB with a third party DLL, I'm using Dynaorder, there are others. Occasionally TS quotes freeze so what I am looking for is a sort of a "GlobalServer" for TS8 that combines IB quotes with the TS feed for a backup. I have been looking at all the third party stuff and can't quite figure out if something is available or if the stuff that is available is too clunky to be practical. If I have to I will go with TS2k but I would rather not.
I am currently using IB with eSignal Charting. Noting that TS now has the option to waive the platform/charting fee, and the fact that eSignal is quite expensive compared to "free", could someone shed some light on how TS compares to eSignal for data? For reference, my main objective is for eminis on 1-5 minute time frames. TIA s