looks like IBKR looking to acquire Tradestation

Discussion in 'Interactive Brokers' started by billyjoerob, Nov 10, 2010.

  1. LeeD

    LeeD

    Interesting, looks like Tradestation has suffered enough from the current economic downturn to become attractive investment.

    I wish IB bought the Tradestation platform and integrated it (including the datafeed) with their current platform... We'll see how it unfolds.
     
  2. Maverick74

    Maverick74

  3. LeeD

    LeeD

    "According to a Securities and Exchange Commission 13-D filing on Thursday, IBG Holdings, which owns Interactive Brokers Group (IBKR), and its founder and chief executive Thomas Peterffy, bought 2.56 million shares of TradeStation for roughly $17 million.

    One market participant, who declined to be named, said that rumors are spreading that the share purchase could be the beginning of a hostile takeover between rivals. Interactive Brokers "tends to be bottom fishers when it comes to acquisitions," the participant said via email.

    According to the filing, the shares were acquired for "investment purposes." At the time of the filing, Peterffy did not have any "present plans or proposals which would relate to or would result in any transaction, event or action ... [but] the Reporting Persons will continue to analyze their investment in the company on an ongoing basis."

    According to filing linked in the opening post, IB has bought 6.3% of outstanding Tradestation shares.
     
  4. Maverick74

    Maverick74

    I'm surprised this thread has not gotten more attention. Doesn't half of ET use IB? I'm just trying to picture how this would all work. Will IB gut Tradestation and completely re-build it? Or just use it as an ad on?
     
  5. LeeD

    LeeD

    It might not be a full-blown acquisition yet. Maybe IB are just getting enough shares to sit on the board... and maybe market their execution service.

    If acquisition actually does happen, it's the Tradestation customers who will mostly be affected. For IB customers it will be business as usual unless IB chooses to make some technology from Tradestation available.
     
  6. Every thing IB touches turns to shit where software is involved.

    This latest build messed up the scanner page layout. You couldn't come up with a more convoluted software if you tried.
     
  7. Isn't the tradestation datafeed horrid? I used to see bad ticks on an hourly basis.
     
  8. I use it almost exclusively and think its quite good with some simple tick filters... I've used a lot of datafeeds, not high frequency or anything, but my execution is sensitive to delays in the seconds. That said I don't use charts for trading...

    Not sure what I think of this potential acquisition... makes a lot of sense though.

    At the moment I use TS to generate most of my orders and they get processed by Excel and then sent to IB for execution. Back when I was using TS as a broker, I called TS to negotiate my rates a few years ago and they didn't budge.... I basically told them they were going to lose my full order flow to IB. They didn't seem to care.

    I'm not a huge commissions generator by some standards, but, I do a fair share... that said, any business model that doesn't work with their customers isn't a sustainable business. IB's costs are sooo much better its laughable.
     
  9. Eight

    Eight

    Did Tradestation ever get their charting software integrated with their brokerage? I left TS because my code couldn't be informed of much about an order or the account... I can do better with Sierracharts or Ninja and IB in that regard. About ten years ago there was a perfect little piece of software that interfaced EZLanguage with IB by the guy at dynastore but he fell ill and closed up shop... I doubt that TS has, after all this time, come anywhere close to what was available via third party software a decade ago, I haven't checked but I just doubt they have...
     
    #10     Nov 11, 2010