This may be a dumb question, but I've always been told that the only stupid question is the one you don't ask, so here goes: I have recently purchased an iMac for my personal computing and I would like to trade remotely within the coming year. Does anyone have any opinions regarding using a Mac for trading instead of a PC? Does it make a difference? Also, are all major trading platforms available for Mac or would I need to run them using VirtualPC? Sorry if this question is too simple for this forum -- I just find that this is the best place to get intelligent answers quickly.
The current version of IB's Java based TWS does not work on Macs (unless they changed something VERY recently). I believe they could make a 100% pure Java version without much effort that would run on Mac OS X, but I don't know if they plan on doing so. I hope they plan to.
I just tried to run IB's Java app on my Mac, and although it did start to work, it complained about a missing DLL (ddedll.dll). So it looks like if they remove the Windows DDE support from TWS, they might have a version that could run on the Mac. Another possibility is to try and create a fake stub library in order to trick TWS into thinking it is there and working. I think I read someone had done this. I don't know if they succeeded.
Thanks for the replies. I am planning on having VirtualPC anyway so I can run windows programs if I have to. Are you familiar with this? Would windows applications run slower on a Mac with VirtualPC than they would on a PC?
If you want to use Windows applications to trade, save yourself a lot of hassle & buy a PC. However, there definitely are a number of trading applications that are designed for the Mac : I'm not up to date on this anymore, as I no longer use Macs, but try Trendsetter Software, Linnsoft (I think), Behold! & others. There must almost certainly be some direct access trading platforms available too, if not IB. But the savings at IB could pay for your PC in no time, if you do enough trades ! My 2 cents / Euros / whatever...