SL4 is friendly towards other applications...I will have to get some answers for you regarding the specifics to Bill Cruz's fine product and will post them for you...SL4 is in a "quiet" period of nondisclosure with a large futures firm that does use Patsystems...I will give you this information when we are out of the "quiet" period...SL4 could be a helpful compliment to entry and exit points as described by other systems...I will get back to you with the accurate information...
xcowboy, I noticed that SL4 keeps track of how long or short a MM is. At first blush this seems like powerful information but I wonder. I assume you just add up the buys and subtract the sells, but you have no way of knowing if the MM is buying for a customer, for its own account, offsetting a short from a few days ago, doing a pairs trade, etc, all of which could affect the importance of how long or short they were. How do you use this data ? Also, if I can run RealTick beside SL4, why couldn't I just execute my trades through RT instead of using oneof your brokers?
The techniques utilized are proprietary..however I can enlighten you to some degree in that methods of surveillance are heavily utilized..Picture this...you walk into an office...you have daily events and parameters whereby your actions are indeed noticed and captured everyday...before you know it..you are trading against your own worst enemy...yourself...everything happens for a reason...Lots of $ and hard fought hours over 9 years and expensive algorithm development and computer time... SL4 does support both scalping and position trading...however we believe that SL4 Scalping can be most quickly taught...our business model is very similar to other software companies...however the BD needs to be on a fair cents per share model...the clearing firms are generally .001 to .003 now with some minimum constraints...with the way that spreads are jumping around..it quite often pays to scale into the position whereas many of these trades are 20 seconds to 3 minutes in duration...you need to be able to pay 50 cents to $1 per 100 shares to get proper results since 3 cents to 9 cents will quite often be the target...a $10 minimum is too much...we are broker dealer neutral and will license to deserving brokers who in turn will have to offer commission scales that can work...
Rigel -- who ever said trading with any platform would be easy? Trading is one of the most difficult things of all to do successfully. And anything that can make it "easier" or potentially more lucrative is something to be considered. What platform are you currently using? If it's so good that you can offer such a statement without researching the product, perhaps you can clue us all into your "holy grail". Does your trading company offer a free trial of your trading product, or can I at least get some information on it? Otherwise, keep your "opinions" to yourself and don't waste our bandwidth with frivoulous statements. Let's try and get some facts going in here. I remember this same type of crap when the Interactive Brokers forums first started here two years ago. "I've never heard of IB -- I wouldn't risk putting my money there -- there's got to be a catch" -- on and on and on... Obviously, those who wanted to quelch IB didn't get very far. If SL4 is even a fraction of what it claims to be, then these negative and baseless comments won't hold it back either. What do they currently pay on interest at LGT? Rigel mentions 1% interest, but given his post, I doubt that figure is a "researched" response.
Phoenix I guess we all have to decide who to listen to. I'm sure your opinions will also get due consideration. I think you should invest in this SL4 program. It sounds like just the thing for you.
Rigel -- This really isn't about listening to anyone or anyone's general opinions, with the exception of "their opinion as it relates to their trading". This really boils to the old "don't judge a book by its cover" statement. As traders, we owe it to ourselves to give every new product at least some level of objective consideration and review. You said "It sounds like just the thing for you." -- it may be, it may not be -- for you -- for all of us -- but unless we evaluate and try (which, in this case, is free anyway), we'll never know for certain either way. I'm still offering to "listen" to you too -- I'd still be interested to hear what platform you're currently using and why you like it so much that you wouldn't even want to look at another.
SL4 was originally designed and created by traders who required certain informational alerts, charting algorithms, montage layouts, and other informational displays for their own trading -- all of which were not available anywhere else (and, outside of SL4, are still not available to this day). In fact, its first incarnation about 8 years ago was in TradeStation, which is still a great product, but TradeStation did not support many of the required tasks for such an application (such as processing Level II data and programming algorithms using it, to mention just one). SL4 focuses on features not available elsewhere. Just about every firm makes decent candlestick charts, has Top 10 lists, can show full news stories, etc. If someone wants the type of standard charting (moving averages, stochastics, candlestick, daily, tick charts) that TradeStation does so well, or the ability to program their own systems based on chart data, they should still keep their TradeStation subscri! ption. We're not in this business to provide one more product like every other one out there. Just about every feature we have implementated has some level of proprietary nature to it -- that's our focus. With TradeStation, one must still program and test systems, buy other systems, and do additional research, which can translate to thousands of dollars more and still not provide someone with a trading strategy that they are comfortable with. With SL4, they can focus on applying the advanced proprietary algorithms and displays on developing a personalized trading methodology most suitable for their style of trading. We would definitely consider an integration with TradeStation's quote and execution environment. However, we do not agree with their per-ticket pricing model ($14.95-$9.95). If they were to offer a reasonable cents-per-share model as an alternative to their per-ticket model, we believe this could be an excellent synergy. The per-ticket model is also the same problem faced by RealTick brokers as well, by the way, and is the reason why we really haven't followed that path for integration. Of course, if there is enough demand from traders who are willing to pay a high ticket price to a broker, maybe we'll reconsider this stance. Regarding automated trading, as mentioned previously, there is an Order Execution API available that works based on simple Windows Messaging. You can place or cancel orders, see open orders, and get open position info for any trading account linked into SL4, as well as get status updates on routes available, connection availability, etc.
xcowboy Junior Member Registered: Dec 2001 Posts: 16 12-16-01 05:30 AM DECENT RATES...INTERESTING TECHNOLOGY It seems as if firms are going to have to charge 1/2 cents to 1 cents just to allow scalping methods to have a chance with decimalization...Does anybody here know anything about www.letsgotrade.com and SL4???looks like decent rates.. __________________ xcowboy C'Mon X like we don't read all these threads? At least be creative enough (or not too lazy) to create another ID if you are going to post the oh so innocent "Anyone ever heard of these guys" when you in fact are "these guys".
mjt: thanks for letting this thread roll. Even if xcowboy did write an ad, I'm glad you let members decide for themselves whether to read it, and further to allow the members to discuss his messages a.k.a. ads. P.S. I'm a brand new member, and enjoy the quality (in general of the threads on EliteTrader. Thanks! See you soon!
xcowboy, Thanks for response, but I really don't see the connection between MM's and furniture in the office. My question is pretty straightforward: how can you tell if a MM is long , very long, short etc? You have no way of knowing what's on his book. Firms like NITE execute thousands of customer orders all day. Since this seems to be an integral part of SL4's approach, I think it is reasonable to get some sort of explanation, rather than just say trust me but it's proprietary. Incidentally, the training material on this site is very good.