Thanks for those comments. How does Multicharts stack-up against those two I wonder ? I've been leaning in that direction, albeit I have an IB API project that I'll be tackling....not with Java mind-you.
I have not looked at Multicharts in years. The abovementioned sofware has very good drm management, with SC it operates if only allowed to phone home once a month and AMIBroker doesn't phone home at all [pretty sure of that] MC has a grid application which is great for trading a huge list of stocks... but AMIBroker has one too, not sure how many issues it will handle
If ToS is still using that incredibly slow "snap-shot" data feed that they were using 2 years ago . . . then you couldn't be MORE wrong about ToS. The platform may have all sorts of "bells and whistles", but the only way that they can offer all of that without overtaxing the platform and keeping it stable is by using that crappy "snap-shot" feed. Think again.
I've been with ToS for over two years and it sounds like you weren't aware of the data feed settings within the cleint: They've always had proper real time data for as long as I've been a client, it just wasn't on by default and instead set to max 3 second delay.
Some folks might also be unaware that you can set the memory it uses at the signon screen, using the configure button in the lower left corner. Upping memory allocation to the max substantially speeds up the performance of the client.
No offense but anyone using TOS and claiming to be a professional trader would have already set their quotes to real time and allocated more memory to the platform. TOS has never had tick for tick data and I donât think ever plans to, which is the same as IB. They both provide snapshot data a few times a second. The problem with TOS, which I have documented many times over the years is that they were having some pretty serious issues providing a stable platform where the quotes didnât freeze at all the wrong times. However as of late things have been noticeably improved, and the stability and quotes are better than they were before. You canât complain too much since the platform and quotes are free, and many here repeat constantly that your broker should not be your quote provider if you need true tick by tick quotes. My problem with TOS since the TDA takeover is that they donât care anymore, they are just an oversized Canadian bank now. That is a far cry from a few ex floor traders running a brokerage. Emails go unanswered, they provide incorrect information, and fail to address bugs in the system. It is what many suspected would happen after the takeover. A bug in the charts where the vertical day lines disappear for futures and forex (but not for equities) when you make your chart a little narrower has basically been ignored. It took me weeks to convince them that they even had a bug even though I had screen shots making it obvious, and now they wonât even commit to fixing it. Before the takeover I would have received an email from one of the founders immediately addressing the issue, now it is just a bunch of people that donât really care, and arenât very good at their jobs.
Well, as you noted, TOS never said they would provide tick by tick data. As long as it comes in regularly and is stable I'm ok, since the lowest time frame I trade on is five minutes. I already find that physically taxing, so I don't know how people who trade on lower timeframes than that even do it. Except if they're automated, and no one who's automated should be at TOS. I've contemplated automation, but if I do it, it won't be with a TOS account. And yes, customer service now, officially, sucks. I remember vividly both the shock of discovering how good it was when I first got an account at TOS, and how lousy it was going to be when I got my first answer to an email after the takeover that wasn't even remotely related to the question. The follow-up to that wasn't even answered. ( I wonder about that. Do these guys even bother reading the question other than to look for a few keywords, decide it's about some other subject, and then send you a boilerplate answer to that other subject? ) I may wind up repeating the cycle, whereby some new one will rise up with great features and customer service, I'll move over to them, and a couple of years later they get taken over by TD.
Thank You. I have "referenced" the TD Ameritrade and ToS "snap-shot" data-feeds vs a Level One "IQ-Feed" quote feed from DTN and the difference is downright alarming. I've even "referenced" the ToS professional/institutional platform called ThinkPipes* vs the basic ToS trading platform with the "snap-shot" feed and the difference was night and day too. *This was back in December of 2009, and I believe that ToS needed to see a minimum account balance of $250k and a minimum of 500 trades per month. The average ThinkPipes account had a balance of $1 million and executed, on average, 1,000 trades per month. The account was entirely separate from TD Ameritrade, and it cleared thru Penson Financial. I'm not even sure if ToS even offers ThinkPipes anymore. I believe that it is now under TD Ameritrade and designed specifically for investment advisors. If you are scalping and day-trading, a "snap-shot" data feed is a downright non-starter... especially in this highly volatile environment where a tremendous amount of quote volume per second is being generated. End of Story.
For me the feed is just fine, but if you're scalping via a DOM then yeah, TOS can be problematic. I am annoyed that they've *still* not fixed a 'bug' in the client's Account Settings pane that will tell you what stock paid your dividend. Right now, you just see something like "ORDINARY DIVIDEND $63.50" in your client and unless you do some research, you really don't know what position that divvie is for. Which is problematic when things get paid on the same day and/or are have very similar distribution amounts. For me, TDOS is "okay" but it's not the "awesomegreat" experience that it was as Legacy ThinkorSwim. Every now and then I keep thinking of going back to OXPS but never get the gumption to do it.
1. Yeah, ThinkPipes is still there. 2. I was trading earlier tonight (commodities futures), and thinking about this fuss about tick-by-tick data, and thinking to myself "would it make any diff?" Nope, none at all. Not if you're trading manually anyway. Is all this fuss about the tick data because of automated trading? I could see it if that's the case. Otherwise, well, no human is going to be able to follow those ticks, except on an off night like tonight when liquidity is low. And tonight, I still couldn't see what the issue was. I'll make or lose a few thou in a day either way, so like, why all this fuss? 3. I need to go to bed. I'll look at this thread again sometime tomorrow.