I'm not a scalper -- I swing trade, so please factor that in...but I do use TS to trade futures. Basically you get Lind Waldock's order execution interface. It's bare bones. It is basically designed to simply take your order and give you account stats. So far, my fills have been virtually instantaneous. I also use TS platform for stocks, and am looking forward to when TS makes the order entry for futures similar. I debated using IB, but personally, I'm willing to pay up slightly for the hope that someone will be on the other end if I have a customer service issue. However, this is not important for everyone, and comissions are less of an issue for me because I don't scalp. Also, I trade mechanically, so TS was a natural choice. Hope that helps. MYD
RadarScreen will allow you to scan several hundred symbols in real-time or end of day to find stocks that trade according to your own criteria. The actual criteria you will be able to scan for are almost countless. For example, you could have one column list the top symbols stocks that have been trending in the last 5 days. And you could have another column track the stocks with the biggest volume increases over their normal volume for the day. And these are just two simple examples of the analysis possibilities you'll have, thanks to the power and flexibility of EasyLanguage.
MichaelD, Will RadarScreen be included with TS7, or will there be an extra charge for this feature? Thanks, Mike D.
Well, i'm not MichaelD but here is a link to features that are being added in TS7 which will be released sometime in March (read "March 31"-- probably). http://www.tradestationsupport.com/whatsnew_ts7c.shtm Some of the questions you have will be addressed in this release including Hot Keys and Window linking.
Mike D, We are not ready to announce pricing at this time. It will be announced at the time of the release.
PoundTheRock, Per our press release on January 9, 2003, the expected release date for TradeStation 7 is March 2003.
Michael: DIRECT ACCESS=DIRECT ACCESS?? You're calling using another clearing firm's servers to access the CME "direct access." However there are other broker dealers whose computers connect directly to the CME, no intermediary firms/computers involved. So I think you're using the term direct access rather loosely. IT ALL COMES DOWN TO SPEED Who cares how orders get to Globex, as long as it reliable and fast. Well I'm not sure that's always the case. TS recently swithed from receiving CME quotes through Refco (which you call "direct access") to receiving them directly to TS's own servers w/o intermediary firms & servers (which I call direct access). The speed increased so dramatically that there were posts here on ET applauding the improvement. This seems to show that the Refco link is a bottle neck. While it's true that waiting over 12 mins for a market fill on the ES and minutes for limit order at the market is not normal, it does happen. And each time I've looked into the problem, there was nothing wrong with Globex. There was on at least one occasion a problem with the intermediary Refco link to Globex. TS IS NOT BAD As I mentioned above in an earlier post in this thread, to be fair, TS has made an adjustment to my account on a market sell that took 13 minutes to be confirmed. And their customer support is very good. But I have to also say that in my experience there is a bottleneck in the order execution of at least the ES during high volume times. And from what I can tell, it's caused by TS's decision to use a secondary firm's servers as an intermediary link to the CME instead of connecting directly to the exchange.