DT: www.interactivebrokers.com trades most European instruments, is price-competitive, and has an API and a community of independent developers that can code for it. Wyckoff said: I believe they charge under 10 bucks to execute traders Wow - that is a good deal. Used to be $10K to get someone whacked
Thanks for all replies. Keynes: You're right - it would be better to have a broker who has a rep. in Europe. GGMK operates in Chicago, San Diego as stated on their website. saschabr: Definitely my own systems. def: I agree that gives me more freedom / flexibility. IB commish are much cheaper. There're plenty of IB add-on software (http://www.interactivebrokers.com/toolbox/servlet/FreelanceTools.current) which can help me to automate systems. But this still means I would have to watch the Eurex market (11 hour/day long) in case of internet connection, power supply or IB goes down. Wyckofftrader: What's the web address for "Systems Trading Group"? I can't find it via google. Under 10 bucks per trade or round-trip? Currently I trade with a system, but I execute trades with some discretion. So far so good - I'm doing better than my system. What I don't like is 11 hour long Eurex session.
DT, understood and don't take this the wrong way as I'm naturally a firm believer in systems. However, I think you're playing with fire running a system where someone isn't watching it all the time. Extreme example is when someone with fat fingers comes along and blows out the market. Trades evetually get busted and when you wake up in the morning you're not flat.
DT-waw: You're right - it would be better to have a broker who has a rep. in Europe. GGMK operates in Chicago, San Diego as stated on their website. I know they have representatives in Europe, at least in Germany and Italy; I directly talked with an italian rep. this morning I'm paper-testing Strategy Runner platform and really like it! Even if you don't use it to auto-trade a system you can appreciate some features like the built-in charts, stop profit/loss options (even trailing), one click trading from the book etc.
www.advancedfutures.com www.velocityfutures.com and I think greentree does auto execute....hope that helps. Vankar has a lot of their own systems you can use to trade but I am not sure if you can use your own, I would guess so.