LOL. He set himself up for that. It is quite a ridiculous thing to say seeing it's universally accepted as one of the best brokerages offering high quality software.
I have been using eSignal over six monthes now, and totaly satisfies, but looking at TS, it look more advances in charting than even Esignal. I have version of TS2000i to use with my Esignal feed, and decided to move to TS when i get proficient with EL to be taking full advantage of the charting plateform. Sure TS is very promising in the future, because soon they will have their own clearing that means lower commision, and in process to make changes to their data feed in near future as announced recently
I use TS and there are tradeoffs. Cons: Subscription software is not a good model. If they ever start raising the fees I will defect. Platform is moderately buggy. New releases have regression bugs. But at least they have new releases. No Options orders on-line until TS8. No Eurex-Bund quotes. Pros: EL is simple although sometime obtuse. However creating a system you believe in is critical to success imo. This is the main reason I use it. I never trade through them. TS is a backup broker. Data feeds are "ok" they used to be really bad but are better now. Bottom line is everyone needs to make their own evaulations for THEIR needs. Besides it is not like you are married to the system because you can always change. Lastly, keep in mind that trading, not coding or building cpu's is the main goal. All the "system" stuff has to be reliable and usable, that is it. There is so much more to trading than which platform. I would guess I good trader could use about any platform and do well. while a poor trader will not have a chance with the "best" platform. Cheers
a-ha! correct for all platforms except TS! The first problem is, that if you don't pay the TS software fee ($100/mo.), you cannot trade through them. You can only place orders through the phone. Now, even if you use TS as a backup broker, then once you stop paying for the software, effectively you don't have a backup broker anymore, because you can't place orders. The second problem is, that if you want to use TS for $100, you need to open an account there, and wire $5K minimum for an uninsured futures account. If you want to keep your money in a securities account (sipc insured), then you need to wire $10K. That's a whole procedure of opening an account and depositing $10K, just to be able to use the software. Alternatively you can use the software without the account but that would cost you $200/mo., and you don't want that. This whole thing really sucks. I go eSignal. But then again I don't do strategy developing.