Tradestation

A quick history of me. I traded futures in the exciting time of 2000-2002. When things dried up my edge as a discretionary trader also dried up. Since 2002 I have had a corporate job. Recently I have been given the opportunity to work from home. I jumped at the chance because I always wanted to get back into trading, but thought giving up current income was not smart.

This is my dilemma. I know that going back to trading as a discretionary trader is not an option. I do not feel confident that I would be able to find a respectable edge that I will not emotionally sabatage. I like the idea of building trading systems using Tradestation. I picked Tradestation because I have no experience programming and some people say it is the best automated trading language for non-programmers. Also it is FREE with 20 trades! I am only going to put 5k into account so interest on deposit would not be an issue for me.


Any advice would be appreciated,

Cokes

 

Does anyone who uses Tradestation have any comments.

Could a trader with no programming experience learn easy language?

Is the automated order entry good? Is it reliable?

Does the system go down a lot?

Does the system get delayed during busy times?


Thank you,

Cokes

 

If you want tradestation for creation and testing strategies,
it's excellent choice, for position, overnight, swing trading.

If doing many intraday excution is what you looking for, there are
other better option available like IB, x-trader,...

 

developing viable automated systems can be extremely time intensive (assuming success is even achievable). do you think you will be ok w/ the commitment to tradestation's monthly fees while you work?
if so.. then go for it. it's powerful software imo. but allow yourself the time to adequately develop, backtest, and forward test the systems.
bb

 

Thank you for your response,

Another question. Lets say I develop 4 basic programs.

1) Dip buying
2) rally selling
3) trend pullback
4) breakout

I decide to use my discretion to run a specific program because I think it would work then. How quickly can the trading system be run in live environment? I guess this questions shows how little I know about automation!

You said if I daytrade should look to use IB. Why is this? Does Tradestation go down a lot? Or do they have a lot of slowdowns? Or is it just a better commission rate?

Thanks,
Cokes

 

Tradestation people seems don't agree to what some ET traders say, They blame it on traders low configured PCs and low speed internet. They say you have to use highest level of hardware you afford to buy. I don't know if this is true, but Tradestation is really big application in term of MB size.


here is their quote:
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Some Facts Regarding the Speed and Robustness of TradeStation’s Data Network
TradeStation’s Data Network utilizes industry leading technology, with servers that utilize 64-bit operating systems and 64-bit multi-core CPUs. The Data Network is composed of hundreds of market data servers, providing capacity that far exceeds the necessary capacity, even during peak times. Throughout the day and at peak times, even on the most active trading days, we utilize only a small portion of our output capacity.

For some time now, there have been some misconceptions regarding TradeStation’s Data Network. We hope that the information below will be helpful to you in understanding the facts.

Myth:
TradeStation’s market data lags the market.

Fact:
With all the users we have researched that have reported this issue, we have found that, in every case, the user’s computer has been unable to receive the amount of data the user needs at the rate at which the user needs it. The computer deficiency has been caused by any number of factors including computer hardware, configuration, internet/network connections or software that is loaded. As a result, this gives the user the perception that TradeStation’s data is slow. Please see the section below for tips on troubleshooting this issue by improving computer performance

 

i suspect that many who endeavor to build these actually never succeed, or are still attempting to succeed. prolly others have immediate success. the question is unanswerable?
bb

 

It's amazing that ONLY tradestation has problems with people who have slower machines... ONLY tradestation....

Hmmm. Somethings afoot....