A day trading system

[TGregg]

Cool, then you have a way to estimate slippage. Check the numbers from your "paper" system to what your actual trades were.

 

[taumeson]

Quote from a34567:

The time stamp is the bar's time stamp. I will change it to the quote's time stamp.

Actually, I did put it to work early last week, full day on Monday and half day on Tuesday and it did make me some real money ($120 or so, about 50% of what the paper trade suggested). I stopped playing with real money due to lack of confidence. I use money.net as data feed and orders were automatically sent to FreeTrade. I pay $1 for each trade since I have made over 200 trades this month.

Thank you for the comments.
JS

a34567, I dont know if it's just me being ultra paranoid, but I think a large part of your slipage is actually due to you using FreeTrade as your broker. The reason I say this is sure, your commissions are low ($1) but they make their money off of selling you. This is also probably what Ameritrade does too, but they in no way claim that their "Auto Route" process will give you the best deal. On the contrary they say they recieve fees and that the firms they route to may make money off the slipage.

Read this PDF entitled "SEC Rule 11Ac1-6 Order Disclosure" http://www.advancedclearing.com/html/CLR2054.pdf

And read Terms and conditions:

"Stock orders are routed via an electronic matrix to a listed, Nasdaq, or over-the-counter agent, ECN or other market participant, depending upon the security being traded, the designated market session and other factors. Freetrade and Ameritrade cannot accept requests to route orders to a specific exchange or market for execution. Ameritrade receives cash payment for routing my stock orders for execution to certain agents on specific listed, Nasdaq, and over-the-counter securities. These agents may be market makers or other market participants and may act as principal and buy, sell or hold securities for their own proprietary accounts and may make money from the "spread."

What does that make you think?

I am saying this because I too am using FreeTrade right now (I am a seriously new newbie) and just want a low-impact way of getting my toes wet while I figure out what my strategy is going to be. (I'm still not sure if i'm going to swing trade or micro trade, so that tells a lot)

Dont get me wrong, I think FreeTrade has a place for low-impact casual trading where you arnt trading by a tick chart... but I'm getting the feeling more and more that it isnt for what I want to be doing.

I think I"m going to start another thread asking what people's opinion on that is.