I stopped out 1.25 pt this morning as my ES trade reversed. I took another trade which went well. I wanted to take my 3 pt profit and found out my platform does not work... As I call Tradestation, the trade went more in my way but by the time I got someone on the phone to make my account work again, my trade is over and I just take the .75 or whatever because it is no longer my trade anymore. I asked them again if it is safe to trade and they said yes, they fixed the problem with CME. So I put on another trade with another 1.5 pt profit, I couldn't believe it... the platform does not work when I click "close the position"... The price bounced right back and go thru my stops because I was trying everything including cancel all orders. The problem is precisely that there is some old cancelled order stucked in my queue that cannot be cancelled in order to execute my order. It occurs to me that I should have just used a straight limit order instead of the convenient "close the position" button. I ended up scratching out the trade even but only after it went against me a bit and came back. It was not pleasant. I closed down the shop early with a slight loss.
I dropped Trades Station a few weeks ago. Matrix for Futures is a joke. Look at Ninja or Trade Maven. I also use IB strictly for equities, and TS is excellent for charting but as a platform it leaves a lot to be desired. I have gone to a Futures only account, and have never had a problem being on hold. (average time has been 15 seconds) My round trips are $4.73 and $5.00. No data feed expenses, only the platform (all of them are around $50)
Very good answer, I couldn't said it better. When you open account with any brokerage, they have disclaimer that provides no guarantees on such issues. I see TS get better & better in near future also, with recent changes and Major improvements on the way.
Why i left months ago ---------------------- MacroEvent Registered: Jul 2005 Posts: 550 09-18-05 04:50 PM i think tradestation is degrading in performance in several areas. i have had numerous problems with their matrix for order entry and at times have had it freeze when news type price action occurs. their charting is many times behind in speed from my esignal and tradestation has stopped/froze for periods of time when esignal kept on going --- this makes it unacceptable for me to use for anything, so I stopped. the margin of $1000 per for the es is not the standard anymore and hurts the higher volume trader in my opinion. i would wire money out of some of my accounts on thursdays every week and they even started to screw that up --- i do not need to talk to a broker for three days to try and solve why they can't do a simple function that my other brokers can do with ease and reliability. the straw that broke the camels back was one day i called their customer service about a major freeze up with my matrix {version 8.1} during a big trade i was in, and after explaining the entire problem for several minutes the rep could only say to me, "bummer dude". well i said, "F*** THAT, close my positions and lets close ALL my accounts NOW". I had dealt with their tech support several times about the matrix problems i had, and all they could keep coming back to was that it could only be my computer. well they did not know of several other traders i know that had the identical problems on different computers --- their matrix programming or order routing IS the problem. i do not know what has caused these problems over the last 6 months for tradestation but I am done with them.
The futures business has many other platforms (ISV) that are solid and are focused around this asset class. If you are a future trader and need a frontend...Go with an IB that can offer TT, Pats, Sterling, Photon, and even TransAct has a nice front end. I have always kept my software and broker separate. Let the broker execute and the ISV run data, backtest and find trade ideas. FIX protocol has allowed all these separate frameworks to work together and piece the best data with the best systems frame work with the most reliable order gateways. I want the the best of breed but I also want my broker to pick up the phone, when needed and that is why I trade with a smaller IB that handles real traders and keeps the retail 10K account out. You get what you pay for. For the traders looking for a platform that executed all asset classes well, check out OmniPro. We have build some add on modules that make this the system solid to use on US and European markets. TC
Guess nothing has changed at TS cept the stock price has lifted nicely the last few months. They promised a market scanner 2years ago. Must have got lost in the bit bucket.
Stock price up means good expectation from the company. Tradestation has made so many positive changes this year. Get yourself updated
In case I was not clear, I speak of a scanner thats server, not client based. So if I wanted to know of stocks making 52 weeks highs, or any other screen I dont have to load 5000 symbols into radar screen. They have that yet? As I said, I got lip service 2 years ago.