As some of you might have noticed Transact now offers Trademaven as an alternative to theirs TransAct platform. Does anyone have experience with that combination. Reason I'm asking, is that I as posted in another thread yesterday - http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?threadid=52917 - am about to start trading US index futures under the 106 R membership incentive. As I noted in that thread yesterday, I'm managing the intraday segment of a private fund that hithhereto exclusively have traded European contracts (and forex) for that purpose, but that we after a test period have decided to start trading electronic US index futures, namely the ES. And as Trademaven has all the functions we'd require for a frontend, and that xTrader doesn't offer us anything on top that we'd need -I guess my question basically is just whether the execution would be as good as and as reliable as xTrader when doing a bit of size? adam
I have yet to experience any down- time with Transact feed and already running 3 months with them. Don't worry, Adam, I am NOT a sales- man for those guys! You can ask Progers82 about Transact, he is also managing money like you.
i really liked transact and depending for what you were doing, trademave was ok. my big thing is api automation so transact didn't work out. though they say end of august their api will be done. so well see. trademave can be benefitial. just not me. you know i honestly like strategy runner better than trademaven. but i think its more expensive. pat
Progers82, Does SR not lag because they put their servers in between ? I have been told that during fast markets the dome becomes erratic and quotes lag substantially even during slow markets (difference can be seen with the eye) Maybe no problem for an intraday swinger but not acceptable for a scalper.
Progers82, You post your observations on this thread ? The guy who told me this compared the quotes from IB with his SR quotes from another broker and the quotes were lagging consistently. The difference was getting better due to improvements but still significant. It is off course comparing apples with oranges. The correct way for measuring the lag would be to compare the quotes from the same broker ; one without SR running and the other with SR so you would need 2 accounts with the same broker and be able to log in simultaneously. I don't know if this is possible technically. Thanks for doing so !
The lagging quotes from SR is due to the poor PATS data feed that supports it. I believe you can use IB's data for SR so that would be a better way to go.
but talking strictly speed (hitting bid/offer) and quality of execution (quality as in getting you in line in the FIFO queu as quickly as possible after sending a limit order) would you trust Trademaven to be as reliable as xTrader?
my opinion from using all of the various platforms-------- xtrader ***** stars --------- the superior platform for scalping trademaven pro ****1/2 stars -------- very solid with some exceptional volume analysis tools transact **** stars -------- very solid but without the analytics that comes with trademaven I currently use the top two------------one for one type of trading and the other for all the other types of trading I do. for the 500 to 1000 roundtrips per day HFT [high frequency trading} needs I would definitely recommend xtrader. For 500 to 1000 roundtrips a day you should be able to negotiate a free T1 connection and at least one free platform fee per month. You might have to trade that size for a month or two to prove out your needs, but after this you can get the comps.
What about Ninja and Button? (unfortunately Button is IB-specific only, Ninja has IB/PATS/MBT) Both seem excellent for scalping to me.