...thanks for sharing that valuable experience. I correspond with a trader who has automated trading with TS and he told me thought he was getting excessive slippage on ES market orders. I watch my NQ market order slippage at IB like a hawk and get near theoretical. You have any relevant experience with TS? Thanks. - Mike
Mike, I have been using TS automation for the past two months and am quite satisfied with their execution. I trade a few markets, my style is swing trading, so I only place 7-10 orders per mkt per week. I always use mkt orders. TS automation seems to be quite robust, it even survives minor outages in connectivity, those lasting less than 30 seconds or so. I would strongly recommend you to implement automation, if you have any issues with discipline, second guessing your strategies etc, automation will take care of it. It does take some getting used to, even if you are now trading a 100% mechanical system, without automation you still have your finger on the trigger so to speak. It took me a few weeks to finally trust the automated part and give up control to a 100% mechanical system. TS I believe is a good solution, but there are others, Strategy runner, various API's etc. My point is once you experience the benefits of automation you will never go back...All the Best.
On the whole slippage is zero or the spread on market orders. However I do sometimes use the limit to market order feature (after x seconds) and what you realize is that the globex book is very deep. I.e. don't expect to be anywhere near the front of the queue when trying to get a good price which is immediately profitable. I sometimes sit there for hours with an open limit order, watch it get traded a few hundred contracts then move away without filling me. I don't think this is TS fault. Just the way globex works.
...hmmm? Thanks for clearing that up. I'll ask my correspondent again what his experience is. Re limit orders, does that mean that you use market orders mostly, even when liquidity is high? I haven't a clue because I never use limit orders. I backtest with market orders and use them all the time. Stupid, maybe, but at the moment I don't care to run the experiment to see the percentage of limit orders that would get filled. - Mike
...thank you kindly for that answer. There is no substitute for talking to the man who has been there. I do plan to automate, but at the moment I am still enjoying the therapeutic benefits of being the monkey who pushes the button for the system. The things that go through my head while the system is progressing toward calling a trade (or not) are quite remarkably psychotic. (I trade once in the morning, whether I need to or not). As long as we are cluttering up this thread, may I inquire why you swing trade in days duration, rather than working on a faster fractal? (If I were a sequoia, I would have bought in 1931 and gone back to sleep, but alas, life is short.) No doubt there is a bit of wisdom there which has escaped my attention. Best regards. - Mike
One thing that also keeps me from moving more capital to my TS account is that they don't pay any interest in your futures account. If a TS representative reads this, here is a question: do you have any plans to change it? Thanks.
I have had futures accounts with few other brokers and none of them paid any interest. I thought this was the industry standard? I always had to purchase T-Bills for my account to get interest, I believe you can do that with TS/rjo Futures.
I don't agree. For example, I use IB as my main broker, but use TS as my charting software. If TS equals or beats IB in the broker category, API access, etc, then why not at the very least set up your backup broker with TS, and perhaps even take your business to a one stop shop? At the moment, TS does not support a host of things that IB supports, e.g., LOO and MOO orders. But neither IB nor TS support indications, bullets, etc. It is amazing to me that these guys only compete on price and not on features. nitro
Again, I don't agree. It has become clear to TRAD that being in the software business is not going to make them grow, in fact, with programs like Wealth-Lab getting better and better, it may be a negative growth business. Hence their entry into the brokerage business. Currently, I use the "best" of both worlds - I use TS to chart and research, and I use IB as my broker. TS needs to do the following: 1) support cheap, margin efficient bullets. 2) support indications 3) support MOO, LOO and MOC orders Keep their costs down and continue to pass along these savnigs (perhaps even self-clearnig to save the extra few pennies) and they will get my business. I suspect others will too. As far as I can tell, IB led for at least two years. They were so clearly better than others, it was a joke to consider anyone else, unless ticket charges were more efficient for you. However, in the past year, IB has done almost nothing to innovate and stay ahead of the field, and others are catching up FAST. My guess is that they are stretched too thin with things like BOX... nitro
imo IB has never been ahead in the platform department. BUT that aspect is soley dependent upon what the user wants out of a platform. For me TS is a far superior platform than others. Have everything I need in one place. Dont have to have charting in one place broker in another. Makes life easier and simple. As far as what TS needs or does not need to do... Have to realize they just entered the broker business little over a year or so ago. They have made significant inroads in a short period of time. mktman