I am looking to switch to a direct access broker. I seem to have narrowed the field to these two. I mostly daytrade but swing trade and trade options a little also. Execution speed is important. I know that Pointdirex does not have online options yet but I can trade options through my other account. Any advice would be helpful. Thanks Mike
PD's sw is sort of an offspring of The Watcher, one of several. There are many people who love the speed of this type of order entry. imo, it will be faster than IB. Maybe not by very much, but if speed is a top priority, I would pay the extra .0025 that PD costs in commission after ecn fees.
nasdaqmadness There was just another long thread discussing PD, Tradestation6, and other direct access platforms, which was most helpful, if you can find it. The problem I have found is that PD Platinum is a great platform, but the charts do not fit my needs. Also a plus is that PD has speed keys for executions. Tradestation 6 has great charts and backtesting capabilities, but the current version has point and click order entry. Also no window linking of charts to L2 window. They have promised speed keys and window linking on the next version.
Hi, I also looked at pointdirex and it seems good. On ething you should also look at IMHO is Redwood Trading. They offer the orriginal watcher software. (commision $0.01 / share and ECN but they also offer the rebates on ISLAND ECN) (I do not trade at them because I'm going to switch to pro in a few weeks , I used to trade at IB)
Just to clarify, with PD's recent commission decrease this .0025 difference may or may not be applicable. PD is now at .007 cents up 25,000 shares daily where it decreases to .006 cents. If you used ISLD or SOES at .0025 then the total cost would actually be a whopping .0005 cents cheaper than IB. If you used other ECNS then it would be slightly more and the .0025 difference (IB cheaper) would be (roughly) accurate.