Add all that "high end software" traders together and they won't total the number of TradeStation. Hey BS continue pissing contest without me.
Tradestation specializes in system trading. There is quit a bit of literature for developing with easy language. As a newbie who wants to trade alhorithmically, you could easily speed up the gargantuan learning curve buy going with Tradestation. No use getting into an argument whether the software is "good" or whether you will make money.
As a newbie, is the TS a broker which makes brokerage profit? OR just a system trading helper? If so, what is their commission, compared with IB? PS) When I see http://www.tradestation.com/products/stocks-and-etfs/pricing possibly they offer even loer commission than IB. Any experience is(are) welcomed. Furthermore, how is their API to 1) download 1-min price between 9:30 and 4:00 2) download positions to local PC. 3) deliver multiple order to server by using one file, of course in equity. Personally, I do not need additional feature of TS over IB, but need easy API. I can program Bollinger and others myself. ********************************** As stated in the bottom at http://www.tradestation.com/en/products/other-rates-and-fees, if I should pay $299/M which is 3.6K/Year, then there is NO reason to try TS (just to use as a broker) at all 3.6K/Year is accumulated to 3.6*50 = 180K for the rest 50 years. Instead of the 180K, I have free time to program the Bollinger etc myself, in the weekends. Learning Bollinger programming gives us 180K.
Wow, that must be new. I only knew of the minimum activity fee. It would be best to a get C# based algorithmic platform and have a data vendor for multiple uses. Still, it would be nice to go through their research library and see what's been done.
So did you mean paying such as $10/M to another feeding company, for intraday equity quote (every 1-min)?
Probably, $75-$100+ non-pro charge with IQFeed with futures and options included. It can be used to feed several platforms (heard but not verified). Unless you want to spend your weekends manually downloading IBKR's limited historical data. There are third party data collector applications, but that's another $ sub for collecting limited and probably erroneous data. I have done this for hobby systems. Not the way to go if you expect a profit center. Here is an inexpensive but seemingly flexible vendor for TOS/Ameritrade/Gain. It uses Javascipt. http://www.activetick.com
For the historical data, such as past 1200 daily OHLC, best way is to use R to download free, by open source such as yahoo.com Explained in http://www.elitetrader.com/et/index.php?threads/simplest-way-to-download-historical-data.291492/ It is only 5 lines of program, without time-consuming a new language such as difficult JAVA. *********************************** However, for the 1-min quote during 9:30 and 4:00, I have to find other reliable and cheap vendor. since yahoo.com does NOT provide it. In case that yahoo charges me $10/M for intraday quote of 500 equities in SnP500, I will pay them happily. Although I am not sure, yahoo never offered it yet.
$50/M in http://www.activetick.com/activetick/contents/PersonalServicesDataAPIPricing.aspx is same as $600/Year. So in the next 50 years in your life, it is a signed contract for as much as 600*50=30K. same as buying a car.