How low can you go? My goal is to some day trade off of a Pocket PC phone. I'm a swing trader and I want to be over at a friends or at a restaurant trading away if I feel like it. I don't want to be chained to a computer - I want the computer chained to me.
I do, with Jtrader, on a 28k - 31k on a good day line. Split second fills most of the time. Order entry will not require a great amount of band width. Because of this a faster connection will not really help unless you are also trying to collect data. I use a DTN satellite feed for the TS data so a smaller (56k) pipeline for order entry is as fast as I need. Most people confuse bandwidth and speed. A higher number means that much more data per second. A small amount of data will get there at the same time. A large amount of data will take longer to go through the narrow line. This means it all depends on what you want to do. If you want quotes and order entry and chat, 56k will not work. But for me it works great. Chuck
JTrader - interesting. So you're on a laptop or a pocket pc or what? I only follow at the most 10-12 issues at a time. Can it handle this small level of quotes. (And I'm talking just numbers here - not charting.)
Also: excuse my ignorance, but what's a DTN satellite feed? Is this costly? Can you get your signal in one location or virtually anywhere?
Quotes are actually small bits of data: price, volume, time stamps, ECN & MM info, etc (text/numerical data). If your charting/broker package is on your PC, all the pretty pictures are generated by the computer and graphics info is NOT sent down the 'pipeline'. Graphics files, voice chat, web charts, video, etc, require relatively HUGE amounts of data compared to quotes and orders (orders being numerical only). So, if you're just following a few stocks and indices, not in a voice/video trading room, not following 200 stocks, and don't have 10 browser windows open at the same time, then dial-up should work fine. With QuoteTracker, from our generous bud Jerry, there is a data transmission/bandwidth indicator on the main screen. With 20 stocks and indices pulling data, and during heaving trading, I think the max transmission rate I've seen is 900 bits per second (.9 kb/s) -- .9 kb/s even compared to a 26.4 or 28.8 kb/s connection, well, looks like there's plenty of room on that "pipe". I'm not trying to convince anyone that dial-up is all you need. I am one of those fanatics (for now) that is monitoring a voice trading room, NASDAQ Heatmaps, Briefing.com, Dow Jones News, 30-40 stocks, and vital-sign feedback data from Kaiser Permanente! (HMO in California...) So, my configuration is cable with dial-up for back-up. Hey, my cable connection has failed me a few times and I've shit a small brick while in a trade (editor's note: first cuss in a post). I would have shit a huge brick if I didn't have a dail-up to fall back on. It takes about 45 seconds to reconnect dialing up -- quicker than calling the broker!!! (NOTE: With all of the above going on in my situation, the dial-up data transfer IS noticeably slower...) FYI
DTN satellite is not portable. It requires a 3' dish permanently mounted in the yard and aimed at their satellite. I have that connected to a HP workstation with two 19' monitors. Lots of charts and analysis running. Cost for mine is $220 inc. CME real time data charges per month. Jtrader is on a Dell workstation with a 19' monitor. While trading nothing else is open on the Dell. Jtrader also shows bid, ask, last sale but no charting. Chuck
I am even afraid to use a wireless modem for my DSL and some of you folks are trading with dial-up. I trade the ES futures and sometimes I get a bottleneck with my CPU during a "spike of ticks" bombarding my charting platform. I do not understand bandwidth or "one bandwith" and the limits of the "pipe" with dial-up verses DSL. But I will continue learning from this thread (not that I will cancel my cable or DSL). I take my trading seriously and do not skimp on my tools or judge my tools solely on cost. Michael B.
Who in the hell is choosing their tools solely on cost? Is that insult directed at me? I have Tradestation 2000i, had Tradestation 4 and 3.5, do you think that was cheap to purchase? My satellite data is much more costly than internet delivered quotes. I trade ES and have never had any problem with bottlenecks or cpu overload. I set up my system to "work" the best no matter the cost. If my phoneline modem quits I still have realtime quotes from the satellite and can call my broker to close out a position when needed. If the satellite would go out I still have quotes and order entry through Jtrader. That is a three tier backup. Satellite, modem and cellphone. It has worked great. I put a lot of time and thought into implementing it. I am sorry if it is not expensive enough to meet your needs.