shneed, I traded with WatcherPlus till a few months ago - I am now using Mach II, an in-house Watcher clone developed for Broadway Trading. WatcherPlus is an ideal tool for the Nasdaq scalper with its lightning fast executions. As with all s/w, there is a learning curve. It's strictly hotkey oriented, so stay away if you're a point-and-clicker. I am not a keyboard virtuoso - my strength lies in interpretation - yet I still appreciated the power of Watcher. Occasional glitches like "yellow orders" - orders which temporarily cannot be cancelled and whose status is unknown. One useful feature is FYI's - details of MM's and ECN's trading with Island for your particular stocks.
Tom-Do you know if Mach II was developed by the Watcher people for Broadway or did Broadway develop it themselves? I heard Watcher is in trouble...the site seems to be dead and they are pulling their software from affiliates etc.
DATTrader, Mach II was developed for Broadway by Strategic Trading Services based in Florida (not Watcher Technologies). Interesting what you say about Watcher - as a remote trader, I don't get to hear all the gossip.
Tom, How is the Watcher compared to the Mach, as far as speed, reliability, features, executions, ecn access? I used to trade on the watcher, but now moved on to Direx Platinum. Both very fast, but Platinum has many more features and very low commission schedule. Thanks Hans
The big difference to me was that the Mach has charting. Last I checked, Watcherplus had an attempt at a tick chart, but I found it pretty useless. The Mach is a little more user friendly, with customizeable colors and more options. The Watcher, I believe, used to be available to Broadway clients only, but now several firms have license to Watcher.
Adding to PennieWise's comments, as a remote trader I am very satisfied with the Mach II VPN internet connection which has proved to be both stable and speedy (not to mention secure). From what you and DATTrader have posted in the past, I would imagine that Mach II is not dissimilar to Direx Platinum. I wish I could say the same for the commission structure
tom p, Thanks a lot for your response. Do you know if the hot keys on watcher are programmable onto a separate keyboard sold through some vendors, I know that you have to press the "shift" or "CTRL" key to place trades, that's too slow in my opinion, if you can program a separate keyboard for those keys, it would be great. Also I am trading now through Interactive Brokers, if you know anything about them, how do you think they compare to Watcher, which do you consider better. The commissions are not an issue, since I would be paying the same on both systems. Thanks again, shneed
Tom What is your current commission structure with the Mach II? I used to trade with broadway with the watcher, wondering if that has changed. Thanks Hans
Do you know if the hot keys on watcher are programmable onto a separate keyboard sold through some vendors Can't help you there - if Watcher Technologies is unavailable, maybe one of the special keyboard manufacturers can provide assistance. Also I am trading now through Interactive Brokers, if you know anything about them, how do you think they compare to Watcher, which do you consider better. Sorry, but I've never traded with IB. BTW, have you heard anything about Watcher vis-a-vis their unaccessable (for now) website, rumors etc.?