Active Trader / Book Trader in any other software?
- Thread starter kakao
- Start date
Excellent tip, i didn't know that you can allocate to any plateform.
Yes, if you contact the IB, this will be their first suggestion but it doesn't work for me or for my friends. Software is still laggy.
Hi Kakao!
Glad to hear that there are more people on my situation!!. I also need to trade in a vertical DOM and I can´t understand how supposed profesional tools like Sterling, Das, Fusion, Takion, Lightspeed, etc... don´t have that feature.
Actually there is no way a trader with level 2&hot keys is more effective than a trader with mouse&ladder. For example in a hot stock moving in very volatile moment (when most of the traders want to trade it) you can´t look at the level2 and send an order "to buy limit at the bid", because WHERE IS THE BID?. On any volatile stock the bid price can switch more than 1$ in less than a 1/10 of a second, and not to mention high priced stocks. In a DOM you click on a price and there will be your order, you may fill it or not, but you won´t find that is has been filled 0.5 or 1$ above. Not possible error.
This very simple issue seems not to be understood by the industry.
Let´s think about how futures are traded, and forex?. Both with a ladder because it´s accurate. If it where not the most useful tool, the futures would be traded in a level2.
The only point to have level2 would be if visualizing ECNs would matter, but nowadays with all the algos, dark pools, hidden orders and volatility, there is no way a person might be interested in watching the ECN´s in one price. Showed volume is the only important thing to watch and that is what a DOM offers.
And much more sensation about spread and movement in a stock.
Let´s see if the industry change his mind and start to offer such nice features.
I´ve been looking for a solution like you but I only found Realtick as a solution but with Lightspeed brokerage they charge a 1$ minimum which discard that platform form active traders. I was also trying to scape from Interactive Brokers which platfom (TWS) is the worst I can imagine, laggy and messy.
Redi plus use to have that feature, I tested it few years ago but I was told that they took away that feature also due to patent issues with TT.
Sadly the most common platform is Sterling with has the worst graphs in the world. Is discusting how they offer that in an expensive platform. And the fonts of the platform are tiny and not configurable, so save some of your profits for your glasses. Overall Sterling is a piece of s... IMHO, and probably the only posibility it´s so extended is because it has functionalities that I dont know and I don´t need. Like programing, but let´s be sincere, 80% of the professionals don´t code algos.
Das has some nice features that Sterling don´t, and Lightspeed (Sterling LST) is from the common platforms what I find the most useful and configurable. And the graphs are the best INMO and their service is great. @Robert Morse will be always there to solve questions. I had a great experience with him and his patience when I tested Lightspeed.
Will contact in private to see if we can find anything, but I´ve searched a lot with no success and even tryed to develop a custom platform to send orders to the brokers API, that way you can forget Sterling and the rest.
We as traders and clients must say the good and the bad about common platforms, and Interactive Brokers shouldn´t get anymore clients until they offer a platform that belong to this century.
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Robert Morse
Sponsor
I'll make the argument that modifying your price with a hotkey or hot button is faster, but you should use the tools that work best for you.
Well to be honest if you have a preconfigured key to move the order a precinfigured amount of 1 cent or 5 cents, yes, it´s a 1/4 of a second faster (1 key push VS right click to cancel&left click to send the new order), but that hot key can´t be used in a 1$ stock same as in a 100$ stock and you can´t configure hot keys for every stock IMHO.
But this shouldn´t be a fight between which one is better. The perfect solution would be to have both tools like in Realtick for example.
Robert Morse
Sponsor
Easy - I have hot keys defined to specify an offset. I also have hot keys for passive buy/sell and aggressive buy/sell. So I press offset-0 and buy-passive to join the bid whatever it may be. If I press offset 0.10 and aggressive-buy, I send buy order for ask+0.10 There’s a reason why DOM is not offered, because most equity day traders don’t use the mouse.
I think that the reason the industry doesn´t offer that is because patent issues. Trading Technologies has that patent and try to get money from everyone that uses DOM.
1. Let´s be honest, having to configure, memorize and press diferent keys to send and orders it´s much more complicated and open to errors than a single click of the mouse. Much less intutive and you have to memorize how to send every order. Like the post above with 8 hot keys, really? the posibilities to commit an error and the level of attention you need can´t compete with a single click in a determined point.
2. With hot keys you never know where will be your order posted, in a volatile stock "buy at the bid" can vary many cents.
3. Let´s say you want to be in the best bid, and the volatile stock rises 0.07cents, then goes down 0.16 cents and then goes up again 0.13 cents. You can´t be faster with keys. How many combinatios do you need to press?. With hot keys you will go crazy and the most dificult thing: you have to think and pay attention to what you are pressing!, so you need to use energy and efford in something that could be easy as breathing. With mouse you need 3 click and you don´t even need to know the price, you just press where the color of the bid starts, even a monkey could do it.
4. Hot keys are only useful for 1 single order, what about the orders you sent before? Or the orders you have in other stocks at the same time. If you scalp you have many orders on the buy and sell side, with hot keys you only can move one, or you have to press more keys to select other orders. With a mouse you click where you need and modify (draging) or cancel what you need. It´s impossible you could manage 4 orders with hot keys faster than with mouse. Hot keys are useful for simple things only, to send an order and leave it, but if your trading involves few orders it´s not useful.
5. Hot keys was logical when using level2 was logical years ago, but now is obsolete with so much algos, dark pools and hidden orders. 90% of what is happening it´s shaddy now.
6. And the proof that DOM is a more accurate method is that futures are traded that way. If a level2 display where better, futures traders would use them.
Of course everything can be done with hot keys like with a mouse and DOM, as you can reach any point in bicycle or car. But with mouseclicks you don´t even need to think and do few actions. A 10 years child could do it, and that leaves many energy and attention to be payd on other aspects of trading.
But on top of that, making two parties and discussing which one is better (DOM vs hot keys) is futile. The industry should offer both (if they could) and the client should have the oportunity to choose which one suits his needs. Everybody will be happy that way.
Most brokers do not offer api directly. You need to use third party platform api. Or let me know which broker offer api?