Is Scottrade any good? Scottrade is offering FREE realtime quotes, and I believe they are compatible with QuoteTracker. Does anyone have any experience with Scottrade as a data vendor (not as a broker)? Thanks! (I already asked this on http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?threadid=1767&pagenumber=2 but that was more or less BTW and no replies so far)
Yes. I have been with them over six months.There trading page is excellent.However,the charts can become useless. For some reason(and they are working on it)there are "ghost" trades that skew the chart.It looks like a flat line almost. For example,Oracle is trading at 18.50 per share and all of a sudden 19.50 goes off as a trade.Now the new high is 19.50 The chart is only so big and square.Since the minute chart has an hour and fifteen minutes of history,it will take that long for the chart and ghost trade to correct and leave the chart.Unfortunately,this is a daily thing.The indexes are fine,with no "ghost" trades scewing it.You can open an account with $500 and use there charts.I recommend this,so you can see what I am talking about.Maybe some day they will fix it.Good luck
OK thanks. So they don't ever lag behind with their quotes? Because that's the most common and annoying problem.
I am not sure what you mean by "lag behind" with quotes. If you have them as a vendor,compare their quotes with a vendor or broker you trust.Just call and get a quote. As far as I know, they are real time and streaming.Charts also.
I have an IRA with Scottrade and I use their quotes and charts as a backup. For the most part they are very accurate. Occasionally you'll get the "ghost" quotes and sometimes it will freeze up all together. I wouldn't use them as your only source if you're trading full time, but they have worked great for me as a backup source.
HUBY, I traded a few of the fast techs like csco ,orcl, sunw, Dell.Look at csco and dell on the five minute charts.At some point in time they were skewed.I traded these every day so I know it was a daily thing.When they are not screwed up, they are fine.Scottrade is my only provider,and soon I won't be using them(SEC margin rule)
Yeah that's what I mean, if you compare, you sometimes see the one half a minute or so behind the other. What I understand from all your reactions is that Scottrade are worth the try. I'll be using Scottrade next to Datek for as long as Datek doesn't cut me off for having a 'zero account', and then compare them. Thanks folks!