Notice from TS: "For those of you using the recently-released TradeStation 8.1, Build 2809, please be aware that the overnight and options buying power amounts displayed in your TradeManager and at the bottom of your screen may be inaccurate. Please call the trade desk at 800-871-3563 to verify your actual buying power before opening any new positions. If you do open positions or take other actions in your account that rely on the inaccurately-displayed buying power amounts, margin calls may be triggered in your account. You may receive no warning of this. Accordingly, any actions taken relying on the inaccurate buying power data are taken solely at your risk and we strongly urge you to take no such actions before verifying your actual buying power. We sincerely apologize for this inconvenience, and hope to have this issue corrected within a few days. Thank you for your patience."
I guess I was right using TS for technical analysis (and time&sales book) and using IB for trading... Lately I started trading TS on a small scale and noticed that after I close a long option position,my buying power does not update immediately, but on the next business day. I called customer services, which told me this is the way they work... Of course, this practice makes it impossible to roll over options positions. With IB, I get the buying power immediately.
IMO, I use TS to develop systems and generate signals. I find it to be good, but like all software filled with glitches and bugs. If you are asking TS v IB as a broker, TS writes good software. If you are asking TS v IB used to develop and test systems, IB is a very good broker. IMO, one should buy out the other. DS
OptionsWizard, The TradeStation platform does indeed perform real time buying power calculations that take into account the offsetting of BOD positions. Please call the trade desk @ 1-800-871-3563 to discuss your particular scenario with an options principal.
dougcs, The TradeStation platform has become the standard for rule-based trading and has widely been recognized by many publications as the choice platform due to the following exceptional areas: analytics, backtesting, data, advanced order execution, the overall brokerage experience and many others.
Since you brought it up, the analytics and backtesting are great but the rest is, um, not so great, including the data (which bursts in times of higher volume), the order execution (sporadic 10-15 second delays between "Order Sent" and "Order Received" and the overall brokerage experience (>45 minute wait times reported during outages). M