OK gang, I'm starting this thread, and I want to hear from everyone. With Tradestation's reduction in commissions, I am strongly considering going with them vs. IB. The commission costs are virtually the same now, and the ability of Program Trading and current and historical simulation gives Tradestation a big plus over IB, IMO. I like IB overall, although they have gone down at crucial times for me in the past week, which seems to be atypical, but was quite frustrating. I want to hear from you guys out there - IB vs. Tradestation - why would you go (or stay) with one versus the other. Are there any other discernible features of one vs. the other ? Any real cavities that one has versus the other ? Thanks in advance for all opinions.
...just a white-trash idiot with a knee-jerk reaction to stupid questions. I was trying to beat dbphoenix, who is the only person here more obnoxious than me, to the punch. If it were anybody else but you, I would say something ugly. I have deep respect for you derived from the intelligence and sincerity of your posts, and from the fact that as a non-native-English speaker, your English is great. Better than Harry's, which is no compliment! You may feel free to make fun of white-trash speech, if you can. As a very happy IB customer, and as someone who has been f**ked to a fare-thee-well by other brokers, my cynicism is well placed and has been bought and paid for.
IB, although I am considering TS as my backup broker. Although the commissions are similar they are still not the same (IB is lower); also, I like the independence of choosing a separate data/charting service (although TS looks pretty good) and I have grown very fond of TWS w/hot keys, etc. However, the main reason for selecting IB is breadth of products. I know of no other broker with all of the attributes stated above and have so many products available. For me it is probably more important since I live in Japan and have access to Japan futures, Honk Kong, Australia and Eurex in addition to the US.
I currently have IB as my broker but I use Tradestation as a charting platform. TS just introduced the matrix, market profile/market depth/order entry tool. This'll be similar to using TWS with the button trader. However, TS has still problems when volume picks up. In that case, I do "tape reading" and follow the market using TWS. Eventually, I'll open an account at Tradestation and keep it as my backup broker. Chinook
TradeStation won't let you try their software, not even a one day free trial. You'll have to go through the whole process of opening a brokerage account just to try the software. Or, pay a mad non-brokerage client software fee of $200/mo., just to TRY the software. I am not interested in strategy development, I trade intraday, and need a charting software that fits certain needs - for example, fast chart flipping. I asked TS if they can give even a two hours trial of the software and they responded: "watch the interactive tutorial". With that kind of attitude they can kiss my. Cheers 50
The philosophy behind this is, that they want you to pay a monthly charge of 200$, once you pay this 200$, you will push yourself to take every benifit of this software by dedicating so much time to it, and this way they know you won't go away easily and most difinitly your ass is belong to them and they can kiss it forever.
Since this has been a totally overwhelming thread , I decided to stick with IB, and not go to Tradestation. I needed a back-testing system, which was why Tradestation came up on my radar, especially since commission rates were dropped substantially by them. Instead, I'm going to stick with IB, which I have been pretty satisfied with overall, and I just signed up with Wealth-Lab. Being an old Pascal guy, coupled with their IB and RealTick adapters, it was a relatively easy choice. I just hope that they stay in business for a while - I know they are small. In regard to Tradestation, I spoke with someone by phone on their nightwatch, who was totally clueless (you never, ever find that at IB), and I sent them a detailed Email with 10 questions that I wanted answered, and I never got a response. That also helped me make my decision (Tradestation are you reading this ????????) You guys can stop posting on this thread now, since I've made my decision.
hayman, Thank you for the feedback. Although you have decided not to use TradeStation, we would like the opportunity to address the issues you had when dealing with our Support Team. We take great pride in our ability to respond to clients' feedback and concerns, and the Director of our Support Team would like to speak with you about the frustrating experience you had. Please email him at spepe@TradeStation.com . Thank you, Greg TradeStation Securities, Inc.
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