I read this series of postings today, as I was hopeless looking for an alternative to CT that would be acceptable, since today I decided to leave Schwab. The reason for that was that I intended to short some stock, sent the order and waited. I saw the price go over my limit in one direction then the other, then again - no fill. I cancelled after one minute plus and called them. I was told by a guy called Paul that, since I do not live in the US, my account became "kind of" a cash account - everytime I want to make a short, my account is routed to some checking before it is released to the floor. Schwab reserves the right to verify and check all orders for up to 3 (three) minutes before they are released to be filled. If I'd be a US resident that would not apply. This explains part of the lousy execution times I was having. The positions window is something a programmer can change. Alerts is something a programmer can change. The disappearing position price in the Trading window, a programmer can solve. The "verification" is something procedural that will require the powers that be take decisions... Perhaps even write down instructions. God forbid - even have to sign them. And be responsible... As you have written before me, Schwab has decided daytraders are not in their line of business - which is OK. Fair relations to their customer would have been stating this loud and clear.
Just thought I'd let you all know that I've decided to go with RML Trading. They have multiple trading platforms, but the one I like is Realtick. Realtick has several news sources. If you go to there website it lists which brokers sell their software, along with information on the software and the news sources they use. Realtick offers all the same functionality that CT had, plus more. The pricing at RML is a little different, as you pay for the software and get a discount on trading. I'm paying $265 a month for Realtick, plus another $95 for the DJ Newswire. My initial reaction was 'WHAT! $350 a month for something I have been and should get for free!'. But when you factor in the discounted per trade cost of $3.40, it's a HUGE savings! Yes, $3.40 per trade! I average about 200 equity trades per month. The move to RML will cut my commissions in HALF! Don't know about you guys, but an extra 13G in my pocket this upcoming year will come in handy! Take a look at realtick. It's pretty slick software, for equity trading anyway. Again, I found RML to have the best pricing. And they use Penson, so you have all that functionality that you're use to on that end. Super friendly support, and you can't beat $3.40 per trade! Other companies I really liked but didn't quite make the cut was Noble, Cobra, and Fidelity. Noble updated their platform to add DJ Newswire, but they don't have access to any market makers or non-direct access. Cobra doesn't offer per trade pricing, only per share. And Fidelity lost me with their customer service. Good luck to all of you in 2008. Waiting for my last trade to clear so I can wire my account over to RML. Can't wait to tell Schwab to kiss my ASS!
joey, did you really get a 3.40 flat rate with 200 trades per month. i read their page as 4.95 per trade PLUS enc fees/rebates for under 2000 trades per month. Still a decent deal depending on order size, but a big difference. I opened a realtick account too but didn't get anywhere near that deal.
I negoiated that. I guess 10 years in sales finally paid off. Talk with Kevin. He'll work with you. Super nice guy. He'll either give it to you (the discount) on the front or back end. It's strange for me to pay for software, but with the discount, who can complain?
I'm a US resident and it applies to me. Whenever I place an order that will put me close to exhausting my overnight buying power (but still, of course, within my daytrading buying power), the order is kicked to a human for approval. Typical wait time in my experience is around 2 minutes.
They bought Cybercorp in 2000, and I think they rolled out the CT-derived SSPro in 2001 for their active traders (I think the threshold was 10 trades per month). Can't blame them for thinking daytrading was profitable back then, or for making an effort to have a platform that could help keep active traders who'd otherwise go to, say, Datek.
It is hard for me to think that Schwab was taken by surprise by the reaction of their traders. It must have been a conscious and weighted decision to make the move of cancelling CyberTrader and replacing it for the downgraded SSPro. Schwab management, conservative as they are, should have known exactly what are the differences between CT and SSPro and how those differences would affect their active traders. If they did not know - they are unfit to manage the company, and the company is responsible to us. If they did know, they decided to do it even knowing how the move would disrupt the business of active traders, and therefore are responsible to us. Should Schwab compensate those traders whose business was affected by their move? May this be a happy year - despite the Schwab problems. Juan-Carlos
I was told by someone at some point that CyberTrader, in recent years, had been signing up quite a few non-daytrading customers. I was also told that Schwab wanted to have the same "brand" on all of their offerings. Other reasons I'm sure influenced them in this decision were: (1) eliminating the cost of Penson, (2) consolidating customer support, back office, and development staff (it's cheaper to support a single platform than it is two, even if the two are similar), and (3) reduction or elimination of some fairly pricey Austin office space. I'm sure there were other cost savings of which I'm unaware. I'm also sure they knew they'd lose some CT customers. I think they probably lost more than they anticipated, but we'll never be privy to that information. I think merging the two units made good business sense. I only wish they had taken the time and trouble to convene a few client focus groups in an effort to do a better job for their CT active traders. So far as I know, they did not. I consider that disgraceful and disrespectful, but that's water over the dam now. Schwab doesn't owe us anything legally, so all we can do at this point is accept that we got a raw deal and move on. I'd be willing to bet there are some exceedingly unhappy CT programmers in Austin. I've written my share of software, and, at least for me, pride of authorship is a big deal. I love seeing what I've slaved to create being used and appreciated, and hate it when a system I helped build is scrapped. Many hours of the time that went into making CT Pro an excellent trading platform were simply abandoned on 12/10/07. What a waste ... I start trading with a new firm tomorrow (1/2/08). I'll try to stop back here in a couple of weeks and leave a note about how the new guys are working out. And I'll be keeping an eye on Schwab to see if they make some legitimate attempts to fix the SS Pro mess. Happy New Year to all.
For the record, I was dealing with a Schwab rep on some account problems, (this seems to be the norm lately) and he said they have a major upgrade scheduled for sometime in February. I will hold off till then before making a new brokerage decision. Unfortunately, I have yet to find an account as good as what we had with CT. I want to thank all of the people who spent the time to post their thoughts on several different brokerage accounts out there. Rich C338