Has anyone experienced problems with Tradestation today? I got booted off of their servers at about 3:30 pm EST today, and have been unable to log back on.
I just noticed that was my first post and I should introduce myself. I have been trading for a few years. And as of two weeks ago I formed a corporation. And now I'm a full time stay at home trader. This has been my plan and dream for a long time. While setting up and putting together my business plan I used a lot of information from here and other sites. I have four monitors with two computers using a DSl connection. While trading for a few years using small lots and creating the typical drawdowns. With luck and minor skill I was able to keep getting base hits to bring my trading up to past my beginning balance. Which was quite a feat being over sixty percent down at one point. In starting out now I have a fairly large brokerage account with more than five years of money in the bank to live off of while I try to finish my learning curve. I am very serious about becoming very good at this. I have the patience and need to further developing the discipline side of trading. The hardest part so far is not admitting when I am on the wrong side of the trade to cut away with the small loss. I have done well so far and only let one get away from me over the last two weeks. Again with luck and the trading gods it came back to me and I got out just over even. Yes, I was one very happy camper. In my trading journal I yelled at myself pretty good. And started chanting" to become a great trader you must have discipline and use stops". Right now I'm still using small lots of two to four hundred shares trying to get use to the feel of trading all day, with only two to three positions on at one time. Biggest lesson these last two weeks is that mental stops don't work even if you only have two trades on. My second fault has been greed. I have let some money get away because I was to excited about the gain and thought it could be even better. But I'm happy and still in the game. I have been lurking here for a long time but never posted. There is some great information at this site and I have learned many things in many different areas of trading. I want to thank all of you right now. Believe it or not my account is in the plus area and hopefully my luck will hold out until the skill level increases and takes over. These last two weeks have been absolutely fantastic. I found out that the toughest boss to work for is, yourself. Keep up the great post here people. You help people you don't even know are there. Some of us just read and absorb your writing.
Yes, I also got booted off around 3:30 PM today. I was able to get back in after about 5-7 minutes and then got booted off again about 15 minutes before closing. After another attempt to log back in, I got in a couple of minutes before 4:00 PM. This is the second time in the last few weeks that TS has been unreliable and went down.
What do you put on your four screens (other than the execution software)? Same question to any other multi-screen traders want out there.
Hello Right now with tradestation I have eight workspaces set up. With more planned for in the future. In each workspace I have an index with a watch list containing all the stocks in that index with some level II, time and sale windows and one minute charts running on six to eight stocks. Using five and one minutes candlestick charts for example on the $SOX Index along with the $COMP one minute chart. I am able to watch and see if that particular index is running with or against the general market. Then using the watch list and one minute charts I compare how the stocks are running compared to their index looking for strength or weakness along with support and resistance areas. Or do they go tick for tick with their index. Except for days like Jan. 29 where everything went down. By the way a good day for me because I was leaning heavy on the short side pretty early. I have found that as one sector goes up another will go down, holds true. And that one sector may lead the move in either direction. When I see the $COMP pull back from the same resistance level twice I will look for stocks to short. If it still shows to be weak on the third try I pull the trigger. Then if it finds support at a level and shows some conviction I try to go long. By using the candlesticks I find it easier for me to see a trend with buyers and sellers and their level of support or resistance. Just a personal thing that works better for me than numbers. It is very simple system because I'm not all that bright. I do not play the open because of lack of experience and I don't have a tried plan of attack. Also I try very hard to be flat at the end of the day because I hate the gaps in the morning that always seem to go against me. I wait for the market to try and give me a clue of what it might do. Then I will wait until it goes to the level I have chosen while leaving a little money on the table waiting and only then try to get a little out of the middle of a move. I think this was a lot more information than what you asked for. Sorry, I guess I am looking for some of the fine people here to point out some flaws and or give any helpful advice. Thanks for the time to vent. Trade Smart Trade Well.
Data is off and on today. Pretty bad, untradable. These jerkoffs probably got to many new customers with their new ads on CNBC and elsewhere and their servers can't handle it. If you are thinking of opening an account here, stay away from TradeStation.