I trade futures but I am working on arbitrage strategies with securities. I read the comments about securities trading on elite but have not seen anything about why someone might use Tradescape as opposed to another company. A freind mentioned Tradescape to me and i wasn't able to even say i had heard of them Anyone have any comments, particuarilly how it might compare to the IB and IB's TWS, the commison, market access etc, or are they for a different sort of trading My question might sound a bit naive, purely as i have never traded securites, but if you can raise any in-depth points from a professional, as opposed to part-tiime traders perspective, i will get it
A solid company that is the parent of Momentum Securities and MarketXT ECN (now Lightspeed, which was granted market maker status). Tradescape was purchased by E*Trade earlier this year for $100+ million.
thank you, but i know all that - i wanted to get a perspective of their value or not to a professional trader
How did you know all of that when you never heard of Tradescape? Tradescape is a direct access broker and their offerings are in line with everyone else's. You have to compare costs and determine what exactly you are looking for. For trade executions and software features, Tradescape is an excellent choice for scalping style traders. Position and swing traders might prefer another type of platform.
Because i had a look at their website and some past posts on elite What i am trying to get at, is whether their commision structure is cheaper than for instance IB and why would they be better for scalping than IB for instance. Any platform that is better for scalping is also going to better for all other types of trading or not? Is it possible to connect to their trading platform in order to initiate computer generated trades for arbitrade with futures for instance? They also seem to have their own trading bureau where traders presumably rent space and they even seem to have one in london, and i wondered if these use the same platform and/or commision structure From some other posts, it seemed that the bulk of their business was from a sort of market making function - is this the case? I know futures inside out, but making money out of securities seems to me to be very diificult, but i would love to be proved wrong and i would be happy to use my present knowledge of futures to aid in secuties trading Its just securities trading seems to be far more complex than trading futures p.s. this is not one of those marketing posts where someone asks which is a good company and then the next post says it is company x - i want to get to understand securities trading more and when my freind mentioned about tradescape - i felt stupid as i had not even heard of them
I don't know how their commissions compare with IB but you can call and find out. Tradescape makes the bulk of its money from transaction costs. A scalper-oriented platform makes exclusive use of Hot Keys for rapid order entry. A position or swing trader can get by with a point and click system because they are not looking for exact entry points. To my knowledge, you can't do program trading on their system. Again, it all depends on what you are looking for. Good traders can make money on any platform, depending on their needs and trading style.
in futures - commisions are per side and fixed - it seems in securities that different brokers dont so much have different charges - buthave different ways of charging - IB seem to offer a simple commisions based structure based purely on the value of the trade -= whearas others seem to have a higher start commion and then a ceiling what do u mean they make most of their money off transaction costs? that seems to be the sort of information i was trying to get at