Well, this is two guys I've ticked off now...hehe Sorry, dude... I'd start a new thread using the proper wording, but I think I got a pretty good idea of what order platforms to start with. Looks like Ninja is the favorite... Thanks for all the votes guys, and the next time I do a poll, I'll try not to confuse the hell out of everybody...hehe
Let me try to put an end to the IB streaming/snapshot debate. There are enough wrong comments on both sides of the argument. 1) IB Datafeed is STREAMING. It just isn't tick-by-tick. Its MAX update rate per symbol is 0.7 or 0.5 or whatever. There is a big difference between that and snapshot quotes, so please limit your comments to something you really know about. 2) As for tick charts being built from a NON tick-by-tick datafeed, it seems to defeat the purpose if you are watching a high volume security. Think about it - The whole point of tick charts is that each bar represents X number of trades instead of time. If you are watching a 50 TICK chart on a security that frequently has more than 2 trades per second, then the limit of 0.7 seconds on the update in affect makes that tick chart the same as a regular candlestick chart with a frequency of 35 seconds - its no longer a tick chart. (you get a 1 tick per 0.7 seconds. 0.7x50=35) 3) The comment about 30% of the ticks being good enough statistically is valid for regular candlestick or OHLC charts. It is NOT valid for TICK charts since the update limitation screws up the very thing that the tick chart is used for - to reflect the pace of trading. If it was a steady 30%, that may still be OK. However its not. If a security trades 10 times per second or 5 times per second, it will get the same number of updates through IB datafeed. 4) With IB, there is another issue - what is a tick? Their datafeed sends streaming fields, not full records. You may get 1 update on LAST price, another on VOLUME and yet another on BID. Each one is a separate item. The order is not guaranteed. Identifying which updates go together and thus constitute a field is possible, but definitely not an exact science. This has less disruptive affect on tick charts than the update limitations The above applies to all Applications that use IB or another non-tick-by-tick datafeed as a source Jerry Medved http://www.quotetracker.com
Jerry, I concur with what you say. There may just be a difference in phrasology between us. My basic point is that 100% of the ticks coming out of the exchange are NOT making their way into ButtonTrader, NinjaTrader, Quotetracker or any other front-end program which relies on IB's datafeed (however we define that feed). I believe this is an uncontested fact. Therefore, when you take a product like ButtonTrader which heavily promotes things like tick/volume pressure analsysis in order to scalp a few ticks from certain symbols (they have a 27 page document on their web site discussing such second-by-second scalping) ....the whole concept is flawed. The reason it is flawed is because you are missing maybe 30% of the information from the exchange when you view those charts which are displayed by ButtonTrader. Which is precisely why I stay with NinjaTrader because it has the features that most people care about when entering and managing their orders. The overly complex ButtonTrader is not user-friendly in my opinion and the touting of things based on a less-than-pure datafeed can be rather misleading.
For those who want something simpler than TWS, not more complicated, check out TSim+. It's free -- donate if you like Big buttons that say "BUY" and "SELL"! You position is clearly displayed on screen-- not hidden with thousands of gadgets... eliminate costly mistakes... Keeps track of your trades in a text file You can add notes to the file as you trade Has both "simulator" and "live" mode so you can practice I've been using it for 3 months now... very happy with it.
I looked at it last week. It has no ability to enter a stop-limit order (essential for ES/NQ traders as only stop-limits are held native on Globex). Right there and then, FORGET ABOUT IT!!!!!!!!! It's nice some guy would put out such a product for free, but it's amateurish compared to NinjaTrader. If you're a professional trader, you'll probably need much more than what Tsim offers.
Not everyone and every trading style and every symbol need to have stoplimits! There is a whole big world out there - the ES/NQ do not make up the whole trading universe!
1- limit orders are also native 2- stop-limit orders are not essential, or even necessary, or even desireable for longer term trading, ES/NQ or anything else
Boy oh boy - with all due respect here .... Stop-limits are absolutely positively ESSENTIAL when trading the ES/NQ no matter what your time frame is. Plain Stop orders are held on IBs servers not on Globex. As such, there is inherent risk in them, not to mention the fact they will be filled last of all in the Globex queue. Example: you are in a long term ES trade (on the long side) with your plain stop order as a protective stop-loss. The market turns against you and touches your stop price. Your order is not executed - and the market starts to tank. You phone IB in panic as to why you are still long. They tell you that they've been having a few problems with their servers in the last 15 mins or so ....."ever so sorry", nothing they can do. After you have lost $2000 and threaten to sue them for not filling an order which you can prove you entered, they politely point you in the direction of the disclosure forms which you signed. C'mon: this is basics 101. When you trade ES/NQ ...you need orders held at Globex. "Native orders" as the jargon goes. Not only does it eliminate the risk of keeping them on IB servers, but it ensures that the order is timestamped/queued/prioritised according to when received. Even without problems with IB servers, your stop order receives the lowest of low priority in terms of getting filled, because it isn't even sent to Globex until after the price is hit. Potential for extra slippage due to lowest priority. To the other guy who says there is a world outside ES/NQ. Absolutely correct there is ...maybe traders of other products will find a use for TSim+. But no informed ES/NQ trader in their right mind would bother with a product that doesn't have stop-limit capabilities.
Since trading NQ/ES I have had one experience with the Globex crashing with an open position, and no experiences with TWS not excecuting a stop order. Not to say that it couldn't happen, anything can. But the only real defense is to trade small. Having an additional account with a phone order desk, where you can hedge your NQ/ES with other issues, helps too. You are kidding yourself if you think a stop-limit order protects you. Ever hear of an air pocket?
There is risk in all types of trading. But there is an ADDED risk when you use non-native orders. The airball you describe affects non-native orders much worse than the native ones, because the non-native order is at the very back of the queue. That order isn't even sent until after the airball is in full flow! So why take the added risk of using a non-native order? With such an order, you increase the risk of getting no fill (problems with IB servers) and you increase the risk of getting the worst fill when there is an airball. It makes no sense. As you say, the markets can give you trouble no matter what you do, but why go looking for it?!!