1. Yes I put 5k in the account so I can pay $114 for Trade Station. Though usually I have the money working on very long term trades. 2. No, exchange fees are extra.....CME mini is $10, and all the exchanges are $5....others are more.. 3. TradeStation can stall. Have free MedVed or something else as a backup if you trade in 1 minute charts like me. 4. I use IB to trade, nothing quicker or cheaper.
I have an account at TS and thus pay the $99/month plus the necessary exchange fees. In my opinion TS is top of the line for charting and backtesting. However, I also use IB for my orders as I've had good experience at a very fair price thus far. I think it's very important to have dual feeds for redundancy in case of problems. Bill
In my opinion, if you want to see some software built by non-traders, check out RealTick from Terra Nova. I managed to survive 3 months with them; never again. Bill
Had a local broker that cleard RJO, never any problems with them. They are big (financially) and been around awhile. Wouldn't think it should be much of an issue. My broker also had transfered from Refco, right after they bought LFG,LLC. Make 'em pretty, Chris
One thing I did get a real kick out of, was the Tradestation explanation of their action. I would think customers with at least some degree of intelligence, would want to know why, instead you get a sales job for R.J.Obrien; 9. Why did you choose R.J. OâBrien? R.J. OâBrien is one of the oldest, most well-known and most reputable futures brokerage houses in the United States. It was formed in 1914, and is a founding member of the CME, and a full clearing member of the CBOT, NYBOT and COMEX. R.J. OâBrien today clears for more than 60,000 futures accounts, including accounts of prominent institutions and high-net-worth individuals. It clears trades on all futures exchanges worldwide. If you want to learn more about R.J. O'Brien you may visit the website, www.rjobrien.com. Oh, ok, thanks...think that about nails it! SP
I use esignal combined with IB. I like the fact that I have a secondary quote stream with IB should eSignal ever go down. Works very well.
Thanks MYDemaray, at least that's a little more informative than their website. I was hoping it was, RJ offering better software for execution. SP
Anyone considering Tradestation should go to their website, register, and read the input from current users. Here is a sample. "Poll Question: I need to think about what to do at the end of the year when tradestation 2000i will no longer be supported. I feel more strongly than ever that a real trader needs a good data feed from a dish, a reliable charting package, and a separate computer for order entry with two different clearing firms and order entry platforms. This cannot be combined into one package like tradestation 7. Yesterday a friend with tradestation 7 came over to trade with is laptop and I was able to compare tradestation 7 with my tradestation 2000i and the dtn feed. There was no comparison. I was getting all the ticks. He was getting a summary. His charts were incomplete and untradeable with the approach we were using. We were both using 600 tick bars and I was always several bars ahead. My indicators were nice and clean, his were all choppy from missing data. All the stuff on his screen was a real distraction. Charts were small with the order entry on screen. He had four monitors on his home setup. I keep my order entry on a separate computer. Tradestation probably feels that all the bells and whistles will entice novice traders but it just distracts from real trading. Tradestation 4 was more than adequate. I've found tradestation 2000i with windows 2000 to be very stable. I've had no crashes except when dtn makes a change and a patch is needed. If anyone else feels the way I do we need to band together to get tradestation to continue support. I don't care about the money they want for tradestation 7. I would be willing to pay a fee for annual support. That's what the old computrac used to do. I think they had a $300 yearly fee for support and upgrades. Maybe if all 2000i users went on a campaign of writing to Mr. Cruz they would reconsider stopping support. If they don't I will switch to ensign or aspen graphics at the end of the year. I will not "upgrade" (really a downgrade in my opinion) to tradestation 7. If they paid me the monthly fee I would not use tradestation 7. If you have any thoughts on what to do to keep support please let me know. Does anyone know a way to contact Mr. Cruz directly? He used to be reachable by phone in the old days. Now I can't even find an email address for him. Thanks Lonetrader1 Starting Member 1 Posts Posted - 05/01/2003 : 14:59:48 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I have the same problem as you. I have TS2000i + DTN and am very pleased with both products.I don't want to use the internet for my data as I can't get high speed service in my area. I don't know what we can do to influence Mr Cruz as I have had no success in the past of getting him to personally respond to my problems with TS. I really want to stay with my 2000i if possible and would be willing to pay for service.It's really amazing that a company with such a good product would leave customers hanging like this! traderdoug Starting Member 25 Posts Posted - 05/01/2003 : 21:54:45 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Someone in one of my other posts gave an email address that is supposed to get email to Mr. Cruz. Perhaps if we all went on an emailing campain our feelings of frustration will get through. I received an automated response so it must have gone through someplace, although the return address was somewhat different. But worth a try. Here it is: officeofthepresident@omegaresearch.com. If anyone has any other suggested please post."