Glad I don't have an account there. TWS on IB is one of the shittiest platforms I've ever used, but at least it works.
This was a wake up call to anybody trading more than 1 contract at a time to GET ANOTHER BROKER, or eventually get run over! I hooked up my 3 year old nieces LeapFrog to the CME for better connectivity just now.
Yes, everyone should have a backup broker - I am opening a new account today. But keep in mind that a backup broker will not help you if you do not know what your position is, if you do not know if you have outstanding orders, and you cannot reach your broker by phone. My next decision is the best way to move funds. I am not closing my TS account, merely drawing funds down to a minimum amount.
Just for the record, I had a small group of folks watching me trade today, and about 5 of them are Tradestation clients. Today they all experienced significant connection problems and I think all of them were essentially stranded with orders executed, not able to determine the status of their orders. Fortunately they were trading small (one or two lots I believe) nevertheless, it is really bad business to handle clients that way...I would guess they lost 3 of the 5 folks as clients today.....whew! Based on the comments on this thread alone, I have to wonder what impact a day like this has on Tradestation's business. One has to wonder if they even give a damn... Steve
Apparantly they do not give a rat's ass, or they would have the infrastructure to support an outage. When I worked on an institutional trading desk, we had a 4 hour power back up and every trader/salesman had at least one cell phone. I am not a small customer, and I can assure you there are at least a few hundred others that opened new futures accounts today. FUCK YOU TRADESTATION!
As mentioned in my older posts, the reality is that Tradestation has known about these problems with their servers and quotes since FEBRUARY-- and they've done nothing to fix the issues. It's now worse than ever. It's an extremely rare day when they act like men and own up to their faults-- Numerous times I was told that their problems were "my fault." "My computer, not theirs-" etc. All BS. They just don't give a damn. -Prof.
Bill and Ralph are selling the business....what's wrong with that ? They made their money...now go make yours. BTW: they could care less about you whiners.
I agree, not sure TS gives a damn. But the "not knowing" period was way too damn long to be excused as routine connectivity problems.
It's quite simple actually....if you are like me and have gotten comfortable with TS charts, keep them and do no more than 10RT's a month with this third tier "Brokerage Firm". They do not even deserve the word SECURITIES in their name!