After some research, i want to day trade focusing as a scalper, it seems to suit my personality the best. Signed up with ThinkOrSwim and their desktop software seems to be good, sure is a heck a lot better than optionsxpress, fidelity or any of those retail brokerage. Anyway i am still at the beginning stage of coming up with a plan and learning the tos interface. Got a couple questions now that i got my feet wet: 1) is there an easier way to place a stop loss order? For example if i buy 100 shares of intc at $19, i DONT want to manually type in another stop loss order to sell at 18.8, is there a way to place a combo order: A) buy 100 shares limit 19 B) stop loss 100 shares at 18.8 2) I dont know if it's because of paper trading or how direct brokerage behaves, but notice quite a few times there are a few ask at 19.2 and i place a buy to cover limit order at 19.2 But it gets stuck at processing for like 60 sec, then gets filled at 19.1. Obviously 19.1 is better than 19.2, but is TOS trying to get me the best price? why did the order stuck at processing for so long? never happened in optionxpress. ps: up $20 paper money so far did 6 trades.
When scalping, execution is everything. It's very easy to scalp in sim mode, getting in and out with large blocks on a live market... that's another story.
Near the bottom of the order entry section of the screen it says "Advanced Order" and has a drop down menu next to it. You can choose "1st triggers..." Check tos website or "Help" tab for exact definitions, but basically you can choose for the first order to trigger a sequence of orders, all orders or OCO (one cancels other - i.e. a stop and a target limit).
When paper trading, the shorter your time frame, the most paper results differ from the real life. Scalping that works in paper usually doesn't work at all with real money. However its nice thar you had practiced first, before betting real money. Now put some real money to see if it really works. Start small.
The TOS platform is not really designed for scapling. It's an amazing platform for analyzing and trading options, but not for scalping stocks, futures, etc. If your looking to trade the e-minis or other futures, give the Open E Cry demo a try.
thanks guys dweber00, what is a good platform for scalping? I am just trading normal nasdaq stocks. Thanks
This has been discussed greatly in other threads. I use TOS for scalping futures and I get instant fills at best price. I don't know what you mean by getting stuck as I've never experienced that with live trading on TOS. Yes, TOS doesn't have a DOM which makes it less easy to scalp but I believe it's in the plans.