No, I wish, but soon. By January I plan to have it. I use the Demo though for my paper trades and I really like it. cm69
all could be answer by reading spyder thread, warning: require lots of patient in following detail instruction on your part, the good news is you don't need much money to start http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=38777
Steve, You say investing. You are receiving lots of answers but most of the answers probably buy and then resell the stock in periods from minutes to a few days. What holding period do you have in mind? What books have you read on making money from the markets?
Rule #1 for you newbie: Avoid Internet msg boards and chatrooms. Don't trust anyone else's 'investment' ideas (i.e. daytrading). Stick to your own research and never ever bet on some cheap stock you saw hyped on a msg board, especially a penny. Seriously, stick with buying a couple shares a month in respectable companies and don't even think about quitting your day job to hang out with these losers. 95% of them daytrade garbage mostly for sh!ts and giggles, not a real living. There you go. Just saved you months or years of worrying about recouping your lunch money.
I am a programmer as well and I'm so sick of my job. I'm trading E-mini options on the side and am doing well. I am forming an incubator fund this Jan. Soon I will tell my boss to kiss my a**. Question of the day: Why do we see so many programmers/engineers turn traders lately?
My guess is because most programmers are intellectual elitists who see themselves much smarter than Joe Boo on the street(and, for most activities in life *are* smarter than Joe Boo), and they get the "If I'm so smart, why aren't I rich" thoughts running through their minds. Additionally, trading, on the surface, also seems to primarily be a numbers game and most engineers and programmers are attracted to numbers, especially numbers pattern recognition. Its easy to combine those factors into thinking you can make it in trading and telling your employer to kiss your @ss. -T