Hi, anyone can answer this question? Is IB's TWS good for trading Futures? It seems it is multi-functional, but not very easy to use. How about Ninja Trader? Which broker do you recommend for trading futures? (for an individual trader)
IB's platform sucks; that's why I use Ninja Trader as the front-end. NT is a necessity if you go with IB. I would check out the following: http://www.infinityfutures.com/ http://www.velocityfutures.com/
I used both of them and I can tell you that answer to your question is really dependend of your trading style. If you are scalper seeking to gain few points than TWS is much worse than Ninja because Ninja has "advanced" order entry/exit option. From other point of view, to automate orders at IB you can you nice proggy www.bracket-trader.com, it's just the best order automation tool I know. If you trading stype is more conservative and you holds positions for at least 10 minutes than there is no difference between TWS and Ninja because TWS also have "one-cancel-other" and "one-active-other" feature, but they are not suitable for quick order entry so not suitable for high-speed scalping. Alex
TWS is great for futures. I have used Ninja, and more recently ZeroLine. Now I trade directly from Sierra Chart - its just more intuitive. But it is worth learning how TWS works so that if you have a problem with your entry platform you can fix it. Just learn how to close positions and order so you can get out if everything went wrong - its not that hard.
Alex, is there a problem with TWS's high-frequency data quality or its order entry and management? What broker, data provider, and order management front end would you recommend for scalping ES for 1-2 points when trading over 100 round trips a day?
yes, a big problem. search for consolidated feeds and backfill using IB. There is a lot of discussion on those topics. I would not recommend scalping with IB on the ES.
i think it works just great. i admit i'm not a scalper though and have more time to enter and exit trades, but its really easy to use. just click on bid or ask and your order is ready to go. you can set defaults for orders in the api settings that make it even easier. there is also an option to use hotkeys for single button order entry....although i havn't found it necessary. i would imagine though that for scalping where trades might last less than 15 seconds it might be inconvenient.
I scalped 2-3 ticks on ES, again, not 2-3 point, but 2-3 ticks on ES with IB and I HAD NO PROBLEM WITH IT !!!!! TWS itself is absolutely ugly for scalping, you can not enter orders fast, it's the only problem, everything else is OK, but the idea is that TWS is just not designed for fast order entry! I highly recommend you to use www.bracket-trader.com as an order management software for working with IB. It's a nice combination, IB as a broker and "bracket-trader" as a order management. But other thing is that IB's day margins are high, something like 5-6k per ES contract, and if you are a scalper looking for several ticks than there is no reason for you to have such high margin, you can have $500 margin per contract on other brokers, I used Velocity futures and Ninja Trader. It's not better nor worse than IB+"bracket trader" but margins per ES is $5-6k on IB and just $500 on Velocity Futures.
I am also in the same situation. I was using optionsXpress Flexcharts for streaming and got killed with the $16/roundturn. So I was thinking about using IB for there $5/round turn and directing that to QuoteTracker so I can use QuoteTrackers order entry while I watch QuoteTrackers streamng charts? Or can anyone recommend a better strategy regarding a software platform/streaming shart? to scalp 1-2 point in and out for about 50 round turns per day?