i have been reading through some old posts trying to get a consensus on a quality broker to use. i have looked at ib, adv. fut., open ecry, and some others. i would like some additional guidance. my situation: i have been following es for about 6 months, with s/r levels and some other indicators. i will be opening an account with about $4,000 in it. i will be trading a couple of rt's a day. sometimes none. (not very active, yet) i am just trying to get used to the market with one contract at first. i will be closing all trades out at the end of the day. i will be trying to catch the 1 or 2 quality moves each day. so with that in mind, what broker would you reccomend. feel free to offer any additional comments....
I've traded the ES with both Advanced Futures/J-Trader and IB. If this is going to be a separate "Futures Only" account, I'd go with Advanced Futures. Mark is a stand up guy, and AF support is excellent. J-Trader is a good platform and I found it easy to learn and use. Give him a call and check to see if they are still are offering the commission discount to ET members (I think it may have been the same same price as IB @ $4.80 a R/T) Good Luck!
The three you mentioned are all good, it depends on your taste. Open-Ecry has market calls on screen. Adv. Futures has J-Trader software, which is very good, and someone to answer questions if you call, plus a phone order desk. However if you get into holding positions overnight it gets confusing, they are set up for daytraders. IB is great and has lots of things to trade when you're ready to branch out. Never experienced their customer service (a good thing, I haven't had any problems) but they have active folks on this board for general questions.
i spoke with justin at open ecry, and he quoted a rate of $9.40 rt. is that not a bit steep. the rate was derived from an online quesitonaire, so i emailed him again with more detail. anyway...
I dont have any experience with other brokers but a couple of things about IB that I really like. You can request funds today and it will be in the bank tommorrow. I like the fact that even tho I trade futures my Universal account is insured the end of the day. I dont know if other brokers are like this.
Both QT and Sierra are fine, but they are only as good as the data feed. Both Sierra Charts and Quote Tracker have support boards, so you may want to check out what the issues are with data feeds, as well as various comments about the programs. If you are trying to do this is inexpensively as possible, open an account with IB, download QT fed by IB data, and trial E-signal. Run both set ups side by side and come to your own conclusions. Good Luck
i was looking over some charting sites, and was wondering if quote tracker is free. i cant seem to find a price page. can someone give me some prices they pay for charting packages. thanks
i see they charge $25 for 3 months. that has to be the cheapest? any comments on sierra?... i see quote tracker is 7 a month. any comments...