I'm sorry, I was playing in our local waterfall! Protrader is it a bad place? I liked some stuff they did, but had disagreements with other stuff. I like the software, I don't know if I'm partial cuz I helped design features or because I 've used it since the ecn client inception. Some shady stuff has happened, but they did offer a customer appreciation check (as long as you agree not to sue them) maxing out at $30K. I think overall I would still trade with them. I doubt any more BS will be pulled since INET is in control.
I have heard that their system is extremely slow for scalpers to use. I have also heard the people that work there and fairly uneducated in terms of the market.
yea I had to explain to the manager how listed trading worked when I had stuck orders or quotes or windoz dr watsons popping up. who can remember when the software is soo messed up!
I had to look it up; I just couldn't believe he could be so stupid. But, yep, he is. The email is chowardsd@aol.com New York, April 26, 2002 - Instinet Group Incorporated (Nasdaq: INET) today announced that Kimberly Hicks, Senior Vice President of Instinet Corporation, will become Chief Executive Officer of ProTrader Group, effective immediately. ProTrader is a provider of advanced trading technologies and electronic brokerage services and was acquired by Instinet in October 2001. Hicks will lead Instinet's efforts to compete for business from small hedge funds and professional day traders, as well as to accelerate the rollout of new and enhanced products for the direct access trading community. ProTrader Securities President, Craig Howard, and Chief Information Officer, Jim Herbold, will remain in their current positions, reporting to Hicks.
I traded there before. There system is as fast as any I have ever used. Direct connections to all the ecn's, all the books were viewable, they had a lot of stuff way before other retail places got it. They have bullets built into their execution software so that you don't need a seperate program. That alone would save someone possibly thousands of dollars IMO because a lot of time I see a bid, flip to another screen to buy the bullet, flip back..and I 've just missed it. They have a boatload of at home traders so I think that is why people think their system is slow. It's not, at the office I traded they used a direct feed NQS??? for quotes and Hyperfeed was the back up. The back up to that was comstock. The problem was the fees. They were enoromous. .50 cent cancels when I left. The did not pay margin interest either atleast where I traded. No problems withthe data or of the infastructure though it was top notch. That is my impression atleast. With regard to the people that work there, it was pretty typical of the retail side in general. My branch manager wouldn't have know an OPG order from a MOC order, but her job was mainly to recruit not trade. However they cater to a different customer than many of us are. They have/had some traders there that only make a few trades a day. They trade off of Briefing.com or CNBC as opposed to the PREM or the Specialist. The pro side and the retail side are a lot closer today than they used to be, but still it remains a different game. kinda like the NFC in the 80's. Power game, run the ball, stingy defense (pro side). Retail side....was like the AFC, lots of plays, lots of finesse. Ok, so my analogy stucks....but anyone reading this who has traded both retail and prop know what I am talking about. Atleast I hope they do. Cheers.
the NQDS feed barley worked. gr8trade was written only to read comstock, the hyperfeed was a line of bull. they had to have the nqds feed go through another software program to code it like comstock it slows the quotes down.
bullets have to be funded from another account with a 25k min and you cant use that accounts buying power. the bullet software is slow sometimes it takes 30 seconds yea 30 seconds to put one on. I've been involved with them for 4 years before I gained enough sense to find a better shop. i must be a duschbag!
That's strange....when I left there.....they had me put a grand or so in a bank account. Then they had me set up a paypal account. Then at the end of the day depending on how many bullets I had used the money for the bullets was somehow subtracted from my bank account using paypal. (this was like a year before paypal ipo). All I know is it was a ton of paperwork, but trading mostly nasdaq you didn't need nearly as many bullets so it wasn't a big concern of mine. we executed bullets through the same software that I have seen basically everywhere. you probably know more about the data feed than I but I was told that we were running the it raw....because they gave traders at our office a choice. With the nqds or whatever it was called we would get a lot more bad ticks, but it was supposed to be a fraction of a second faster. Who knows. Nothing suprises me anymore. When I left they were using that feed, and if you are correct that it was having to have it coded again I guess I was being fooled as well. as I never heard about that. tell you what I did like at that place. Instinet Flip page! Back in the day when all the stupid money was flying around, that thing was arbitrage heaven. cheers.