if you want to use TOS for intraday trading.... just go out and buy a pistol your can do yourself in much faster that way
I think the problem is with their data feed provider. They're probably using a wholesale service like Interactive Data.
Sometimes an "erroneous print" on the live account shows up on the hi/low for the day and thus skew the charts, without self-correcting. For example, if there is a print way outside the market for the SPY which gets canceled later, it can mask the true low or high of the day on the hourly chart. Sometimes it does it on the daily. This has been brought to their attention by several traders (myself included) via their live chat customer service, and we all get the same response: "it's the data feed provider." They have a manual fix for it whereby you can highlight the candle and enter in the proper high or low for the day which will correct it. This does not happen all the time, however when it does it's quite annoying.
For ThinkPipes the capital requirement is something like $250,000. I forget how much volume they need to see you do. Remember, the ThinkPipes platform is a much more "professional" platform that ToS offers. It is not associated with Ameritrade, and clears Penson, which will require brand new account forms to be filled out. At least that was the "story" when I last checked back in May of 2010.
this is an email from Tom Sosnoff. Notice how he tries to make it sound like a good thing. hilarious... and sad. Stay the hell away from TOS unless you are swing trading. ..................................................... Thanks ....! I believe that you are mistaken. The quote speed on TOS Is configurable by the client. Just use the Setup Box in the upper right and corner and you always select real-time streaming. I think that this person is referring to Charts only where we will throttle data delivery so you can effectively use all the tools offered and still trade. I hope this helps, Tom Sent from my iPad
I dropped my TOS account - nice looking but the software is SOOOO SLOW. Great for investors, but not for traders. I loved it before they became AmeraTrade, something has gone down hill. They also have announced they are stopping support on their ThinkPipes platform, which is what I was using. That is why I am looking for something right now. So far Obsidian www.silexx.com seems to be the best alternative to ThinkPipes. I don't want to have to change brokerage firms, just to use another software.
I've been a big fan of tos for almost 5years now; and still love the platform. But have recently discovered that its not the best one if you are trying to daytrade the futures markets. you hardly ever get filled without it moving past you. here's a post on that topic: http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=205465 Currently with Mirus+NT for my futures trades and am loving it.. absolutely unbelievable the fills i now get; and still love TOS for my options trades (more longer term ones). my2cents -kcgoogler
Yeah, it really looks like ToS is going the way of "retail". I have actually switched over to Schwab's Street Smart Pro Platform given that the data-feed infrastructure is all Schwab's and not subbed out to a third party data provider like Interactive Data. In fact, the guy that handled the huge data demands placed on Cybertrader a decade ago is still with Schwab in Austin, TX. At one point, I hear that they had more bandwidth demand on that platform than that of Dell Computer Corp, Univ. of Texas, and the Capital (govt) COMBINED. The guy knows his stuff! If you actively trade from California, or Arizona you'll love the fact that Schwab's servers are located in Phoenix. Very fast, and stable (did not "freeze" during the Flash Crash) with fairly low latency.
I've been using TOS for about 5 years and over 100K in commissions with them. I just dropped them for IB because their desktop is so slow that I would consider it non-functioning. I have the fastest internet fiber available in my city and can watch HD blueray of a server through managed IP but I can't get TOS to run fast enough to even load some option prices.