Greetings, Pros: - TradeStation is an amazing trading software. It is very functional, very strong, very beautiful. You can do many things easily. If not, you can code by their EasyLanguage. Especially their Matrix (known as DOM, Ladder Trader, Booktrader, Active Trader etc. on other platforms) is the best in the market. They reprogrammed it by Microsoft Grid and it is now more smooth and faster. You can scan the rapidly rising or falling stocks live. I used most of the rading softwares in the market and i really liked the TradeStation ... - Their Webtrader, Mobile App, Ipad App etc. excellent. I really felt first time that i can trade on the Ipad... Their DOM shows unlimited rows in mobile app. IBKR Mobile was showing only 10 rows for example, which was restricted view... - Execution speed seems to be really good. Scalpers are gonna be happy with that speed imo. Cons: - Horrible short locate service. HORRIBLE... First time i saw a broker, which has worst than IBKR in view of short locate service... Many easy to borrow stocks on the other brokers are hard to borrow here and actually 90% of the daily runners are HTB... See the daily runners here, HB means hard to borrow: https://i.imgur.com/kkUZ76N.png and many times you get 0 shares borrowed... - Trading hours almost same like Robinhood. Very restricted. It starts 8.00 AM EST and you miss the first 4 hours action... If any action happens during 4.00 AM - 7.59 AM EST, you just cannot do anything even you lose money, you just need to look at the monitor desperately. They close at 8.00 PM EST, but in the after hours your short locate requests take 30 mins-1 hour completed and many times my requests got rejected. Intraday it takes 1-10 mins and it causes to lose good entry points. - Customer service is the most unfriendly customer service probably i've ever experienced. Many of your questions won't be replied. For example: Short Locate App is not loading for me because Internet Explorer 11 is not able to open the web page shortlocate.tradestation.com. I am using windows 8.1 because many engineering softwares i use works with windows 8.1. Customer service means, TradeStation doesn't support the Windows 8.1 , even Microsoft doesn't support it and if i choose to use a "low level OS (word by word what they said)" i need to stand for such troubles. I sent them their webpage which shows that TradeStation supports Windows 8.1 and even Microsoft supports Windows 8.1 , customer services said "Do you have any other questions?". - You cannot zoom in and out with mouse wheel. It is a request since 2010 in their official forum but the developers are resisting to add this future. No idea why. You need to zoom in and out by UP and Down Arrows on keyboard or click on the zoom in and out button on the chart. - You need to call them to ask interest rates etc. But after 4.30 AM EST, you cannot know the interest rates because the team, calculates interest rates leaves the office right before the beginning of after hours. If you have a problem with a trading, you need to call them btw. They don't use E-Mail or chat. Most of the time you need to call them to solve your problems... It feels like trading in 90'... They don't use E-Mails or Chat. Chat is only for the sales and technical questions regarding the software (many of times they could not help for my questions anways). - Almost forgot the add, this part is really important. I've located 10k shares today to short a stock and after 5 mins later i gave order but my order has been rejected. I called them and asked what's going on. They told me that another valuable customer got the almost all shortable stocks. They mean it is unusual and don't happens always but i've experienced that 2 times in my first trading day anways. I hope my experiences help for someone else.
Their software and speed are awesome. I primarily trade using chart trading. Your points on their customer service is spot on though. Were it not for the sales rep I signed on with I'd have been screwed. Their online chat is virtually useless. However, I have a teleconference scheduled with one of their managers tomorrow. I was inches from sending a letter to their CEO about the nightmare of dealing with their customer service to the point I had it written and sent a copy to the sales rep. They could probably be the #1 brokerage platform with the quality of their platform if not for the worst customer service I've ever dealt with. Hopefully that will begin to change after tomorrow's call. I will make sure to include your comments as well. One caveat. If they didnt have an outstanding product I would just leave. If they had excellent customer service with a subpar product I'd leave. I'll give a company a fighting chance to improve their customer service if they have a great product, but I'll bounce for greener pastures if they dont improve. I'll also give them an honest review if they do improve or fail to improve. Having accounts here and on a number of subreddits, people are constantly asking for opinions on brokerages and platforms.
@Bugsy Nice to hear someone who had same experiences. My biggest problem is the restricted trading hours. They really need to open earlier, if they want to have more customers. And their short locate tool doesn't work in after hours at some point. Waiting 1 hour long for the short locate is not the way of 2020. On the other brokers i get borrowable shares in just secs. I am gonna leave TradeStation very soon.
Have you tried their "Hot List"? It has settings to find gap ups and downs and volatility. Basically a screener for fast moving companies premarket. Not sure if any meet your criteria for shorts. Honestly I switched to futures on their platform. Plenty of volatility up and down and it trades almost 24/7 for 6 days a week. Higher leverage if that's your thing. Not sure if you've ever traded futures but it's not too much of a change if you know how to trade stocks already.
Their hot stock finder tools are really good. There are 1-2 softwares which offers such good features in the market. It is rare. TradeStation should be fine for the future traders. But it is really dangerous for the stock traders. Imagine this scenario: You wanted to hold a stock long over night and a bad news dropped between 10 PM EST - 7.59 AM EST... You just screwed at that point... You cannot close your positions... That's why i am gonna keep TradeStation as a charting and stock screener software but i am not gonna use TradeStation anymore.
I'm asking because I don't know, but will bring it up in tomorrow's teleconference, are you saying they do not have any after hours or premarket trading enabled on their platform?
Got it. Stock market is open from 4.00 AM EST to 10 PM EST but TradeStation is open from 8.00 AM EST to 10 PM EST. And you can ask this too: Why they claim that 90% of the daily runner stocks are hard to borrow on TradeStation... Many of those stocks are easy to borrow on the other brokers, that you can short easily...
Okay. I will bring these questions up tomorrow (maybe Wednesday as I may go to Reddit to see if others have some questions).
Just found this post and im glad you talked about this. I am a day trader and same issue here, even today I was able to get 20K locates to short, it worked fine in the premarket, but after market open suddenly says SL0100 SPI cannot be shorted at this time. Really pissed while people in other brokers were fine. The only reason I like TS is it doesn't charge for locates, I see people spending hundreds and sometimes thousands on locates, however tradestation doesn't charge anything. Isn't this a pro too or am I wrong?