Has anyone used both of these Tradestation products? Can you tell me the major or minor differences between them? Thanks so much. Dave
https://www.tradestation.com/newaccount/preaccount.asp Does this link say that Tradestation8 is free if I open a brokerage account at Tradestation and has a minimum of $5000 in my account as well as do 10RTs per month. Is that it, or is there something more to it?
Major differences are... 1. With TS2ki you buy the software and that's it. With TS8 you have a monthly fee. Though see above re. getting TS8 for free. 2. With TS2ki you have the database on your local PC. You need to buy data for your database, maintain it and get a realtime data provider. With TS8 all the data is held on TradeStation's network. You get historic data and realtime data from the TS network included in your monthly fee. You are limited to whatever data TradeStation provide (currently only US exchanges and Eurex at some point in the future). With the latest version you can also load ASCII data. There are options for getting data from other exchanges but this isn't supported by TradeStation and is relatively expensive. There are too many minor differences to mention. TS2ki is pretty much obsolete.
I am resurrecting TS2k after a couple of years with TS8 and it's predecessors. TS2k actually still works. TS8 has data on demand into charts and RadarScreen. TS2k can be retrofitted with data on demand into charts with a third party app but I never found an app that would get data on demand into Radarscreen. One click on the issue in RadarScreen in TS8 will bring up a chart of the issue, with TS2k you have to enter the symbol in a chart so maybe things will be harder when it is hectic. An indicator in RadarScreen can have 100 columns of output, with TS2k [also called TS5 sometimes] you will have only 4 columns available to you. The look and feel of TS8 is much better but I am questioning if the functionality is really that much better. Getting a large list of symbols into the Global server for TS2k is a pain, I use a macro to copy symbols from an Excel file and put them into the Global Server. It was running for hours yesterday copying about 1200 symbols, the macro program runs at the same speed as it was recorded. That would have been a grim, boring, and depressing task by hand. Getting 100 bars of data on each symbol took quite a few minutes from DTNIQ. What that means in terms of TS8 over TS2k is in the evening I will have to do a data download before I can screen for the next day's trading with TS2k and with TS8 I would open the Radarscreen and it would do the download transparently and a little quicker. I don't use that much different types of history or that much for that matter. If my Global Server crashes I can delete the files and reload the history I need in an hour. If I connect 450 symbols to the DTN network my CPU jumps to 100% for a few seconds at the open and then settles down to a much lower figure. That would be improved with more RAM in my experience, I have not gotten around to installing the second stick or checking to see if I have a delay in the data at the open or at any elevated CPU usage levels. There are things you cannot do in both versions. I make very much use of the Radarscreen and in neither version can I "confuse" it without paying the price. You cannot format an indicator while it is calculationg and loading data, it will slow to a permanent crawl. With TS8 I learned to delete the indicator, format it, I made a dummy indicator to load all the data, only after the data is loaded do I install the indicator back to Radarscreen, saves me headaches.
I stay with TS2K as I needed radarscreen for non US markets and because I wanted multiple choice of data feeds for non US markets. For me there seems no real reason to upgrade to TS8 and also pay quite a hefty fee for Owndata. I don't hear good things about their brokerage side and trade primarily non US markets. Disadvantages are that some ela's that I would be prepared to buy are written only for TS8 now whereas as I understand it a TS2K ela will run on TS8. Also being able to feed Excel data drect from TS via TSSupports new converter would be a plus - only works for TS8, but I can use IB DDE link for IB feed. As has been pointed out, globalserver can be a pain and I am having trouble finding quick/one click ways to input and maintain data downloaded as EoD AASCI. Absence of support means nothing on a day to day basis* as support people everywhere these days just want to fob you off with any answer that allows them to tick the 'complete' box and usually seem to know less than I do. The only real answers are found on places like this. Some support can be obtained from buying TS2K from some European sellers but buying new now may mean buying something with a finite life as eventually there will be some change to something that will mean the end of the road. * someone posted before that they solved a problem with a third party indicator that required liason between the writer and TS. I guess this is a plus for TS8 as this kind of support is a possibility with TS8 but probably not with TS2K.