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If you take a look a couple of threads ago, you'll see NOT to use Scottrade: http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=116218&perpage=6&pagenumber=1 Other than that, my preference is for MB Trading. They have low commissions (about $5 per trade fixed price) and good, clean...

stock777, I can't use limit most of the time. I need to get into a trade within about a half a second of an event taking place on the market, and that doesn't allow for limit. It's worth the risk to earn a percent in 10 to 15 seconds, which is how long many of my trades last. On the...

syswizard is correct about the real-time OS summary. In fact, my in-house server for database and web applications (isn't that an oxymoron?) is Server 2003. On the other hand, as long as you keep your installation healthy, XP and even Vista will work just fine for even fairly active traders...

Please don't question the efficacy of my computer setup. I can assure you that I know more about software and hardware than anyone else in this forum. Of course Best Buy only sells 2 gig systems -- they know that idiots have to use the systems, so they need the extra RAM. Yes, Vista is a pig...

Thanks for the side-by-side example, traderich. Thanks to everybody for comments and conversation. I'm glad to see I'm not the only one who has had a problem there. I guess it's a human thing: even if you are practically certain of something, you still second-guess your own experiences until...

DataCruncher, No problem. As to stop limit orders, I've never used them so I can't say. I usually use trailing stops, often jumping out on the top (or bottom) of a fast trend, with the trailing stop as more of a safety net. As such, I use only market.

sunggong, Even when Scottrade was behaving properly, extremely busy times (like the first 60 seconds of the day) would cause 10 to 15 second delays. I have only tried two brokers, so I can't comment on many others, but with MB Trading I have never had any execution slower than 2 seconds from...

DataCruncher, You may very well have some slippage with your stop-markets. I usually get a price which is at or within about .1% of my stop price (so basically a penny or two). The worst I have had is .25% past my stop price, and that was when AKAM suddenly dropped like a rock (which it is...

Honesty requires that I say some good things about Scottrade. You have seen fairly convincing evidence that their market executions lack in many ways. That is the most important point for many traders. On the pro side, however, their customer service is good (besides not refunding any of my...

I haven't used a TTO yet, but I can comment on their stops and trailing stops. While their executions are instantaneous, we haven't quite figured out what triggers the stop. It seems that the triggers are a little slow sometimes (while other times, they are spot-on). This means that we have seen...

stock777, Quite true. With MB Trading we've had a couple of unlucky executions when things started tumbling right at the mouse click. One was even unlucky to the tune of 3/4 of a percent. The problem is when you get a price which is a full percent below the current bid/ask, and the bid/ask...

Selecto, Very typical with them. Well, of course in a volatile market anything can happen, but I've seen it happen in fairly stable stocks during fairly non-volatile times, so it still may not be your fault. As to DataCruncher's question, I will say that Scottrade almost always had shares...

I felt like it was time for a public service message about Scottrade. Never mind that their Elite software suffered from version upgrade problems on Vista (Vista has only been available for, what? 4 years now?). Let's just focus on executions. Occasionally, the execution times would be...