hi all i'm thinking of opening an account w/ trade station. could u kindly comment on pro/cons based on ur personal experiences. i'd like to use it for active trading but not microsecond scalping. thx
What are you trading? Futures? There are better firms, better rates, better execution platforms. Stocks? Interactive brokers is at present the King of Retail brokers. But how useful it is will depend on leg work from you. Interest paid on your TS account is essentially nil. Customer service ditto. Very good charting and a plethora of easy language code available for learning. Still, despite its age one of the better charting/analysis platforms. Stocks data better than futures in terms of latency. Beware futures on Fed days, quotes can be sticky. If you are able to make 3 (10/month) futures trades a week, platform is free save for exchange fees, so if you have any kind of methodology good platform gratis. What else? Vast amount of historical data for backtesting your systems if that's your thing albeit some limitations there. RadarScreen has few peers for scanning. Matrix is decent for execution but childs play compared to Ninja/Button/ZeroLine Trader among others. Search the boards/reviews for brokers, software, front ends. TS is not the only game in town anymore.
Do yourself a favor and steer well clear of TradeStation. It is the worst of everything, amongst which but not limited to the MOST OBSOLETE PLATFORM in the industry. They use the oldest trick in the book by hooking you initially and then once you've become entangled in their learning curve, you're theirs for ever. Your learning curve is your biggest investment in this business. Spend it wisely with a firm who is committed to progress and improvements. TS, belongs to a couple of brothers who only care about bubbling their stock prices and spinning their shares off while they can. Go IB with Ninja which has a free version! Or Transactfutures who have very low rates, Also Global have good rates. IB is just fine except their rates are not the lowest in the industry or I'd be 100% with them. Remember, it is not your capital at risk but your time which is the most precious capital one has and that should not be wasted on TS. I'll probably get a couple of the TS attack dogs barking soon but, pay attention they won't give any specifics other than using profanity to discourage the critics. That by itself should be reason enough to stay away from a firm who uses attack dogs.
I'm not a huge fan of Tradestation, but this is an outlandish overstatement. I think the platform is actually quite nice--it's extremely easy to create your own indicators, statistical analyses, automated systems, etc. (Want to know the average >2.5 std deviation move in a stock for the last 5 years? That takes about 3 minutes to code, for example) EasyLanguage is dead simple to learn, and perfect for the average trader who knows a little bit about programming. The user forums are also filled with a number of people who contribute extremely useful add-ins to their platform. It's not good for millisecond-scale automated trading systems. It's not good for long-term portfolio management. Now, if you want to complain about Tradestation, here are my top 2 complaints: 1) No interest on cash. IB, on the other hand, pays pretty well. 2) Getting money in and out is way too difficult. With IB, I simply submit an ACH transfer request and my money is there within 24 hours. With Tradestation, be prepared to download, print, fill-out, fax forms, wait 24 hours for someone to read them, wait another 24 hours for a wire transfer to be submitted, etc. Then be prepared to pay for all of these services. I've not tried NinjaTrader yet, but I've found Tradestation (v8.3 or so) to be quite suitable for the beginner. As a brokerage, on the other hand, I did not enjoy Tradestation and am very happy with Interactive Brokers.
Easy Language, is not easy and it is very incomplete. As in, trading is about data mining if you will and the one most basic tool for that purpose is Matrices and EL does not even have a pointer function in it's extremely lame and veryyyyyy slow arrays! The most basic but important tool for programming is an Editor and EL/TS has the most obsolete one in the industry belonging to the early 80's, or not? Should one still go through the learning curve of a very confusing Notepad type of a program for writing an elaborate letter or start learning Words? With IB around(exact same rates as TS(which both are very high BTW!)) and so many other fine charting programs that could be used with IB feed and having full access to it's API, there is simply no reason or justification to drive an 84 Chevy while for the same money you can have a 2008 model? FullArt, thank you for your extremely articulate and useful comments and helping maintain a calm and productive review here.
These posts show some good pros and cons IMO. I am strongly considering making the switch from Sierra Charts to TS simply because I could write my own indicators. Actually someone has already written a very nice ELD for what I need to do. With Sierra I have to learn C # or pay someone every time I want to modify it. A couple of questions if I could. Last time I looked at EL, it's basically if, then, greater than, less than statements is it not? During regular trading does it lock it at all? How is their trade desk support for futures if it locks up? I would most likely only do the 10 RT's required and do the rest at TransAct as I am happy with them. TIA Dan
EL has loops as well, but it's a very simple syntax. If Close[1] > Close then begin Plot1(Close[1] - Close); end else begin Plot1(Close - Close[1]); end; I'm not saying that block does anything useful, just it's a sample of syntax. It would essentially plot the absolute value of the difference between yesterdays close and todays. (You could just plot Abs(Close[1] - Close) too) I've never had Tradestation "lock". The worst I've had is if the data feed goes away. This happens occasionally (every few quarters, and generally only for a minute or so) Their trade desk is fast, but expensive. If you need to get out over the phone, it's going to cost ya.
Would you say a newer computer with dual core processor 2.0 per CPU and 2 gig of RAM is enough? Searching ET I see some recommend 8.1 as 8.3 has had some issues? Which would you recommend. Thanks much for the speed earlier reply. Dan
Dan. don't get sucked in by the 10 trade a month scam. this industry is about knowledge and the learning curve which will consume your most precious capital whichis your time. TS is OLD and OBSOLETE, just ask yourself why don't they offer a Demo????!!!! Wouldn't they if they were sure of the product they are selling? Invest in your time not in the TS junk.
I do admit that customer service with tradestation can be a little weak, but the limitless functionality of radarscreen is hard to beat. Also, TS charting is second to none.