Assent?

I have heard of Jasper Capital, in fact I was at a holiday party with one of the guys who works with Jasper Capital and their broker.... awesome guys, but we never talked commissions etc.


I have heard some good things about them before, ranging from nice office perks to low rates. Again, I would hate to quote their commissions and be off even by a small amount!


I believe they use Anvil, but they may have several products at the office available for use.....
 
Quote from Bobarino:

LOL, hope I don't get busted for being a new poster.... guess I just outed myself!

Anyway, I agree with pretty much everything you guys have said so far. I work with Assent's API and previously used some of Instinet's products, as well as a few smaller brands that had low, low commisions but sucked (crashed all the time, could not hold overnights, etc). I use the API for my automated trading and Anvil for my hand trades... the speed is second to NONE!


Assent does not offer training, they seem to cater to the more advanced traders... however, I have spoken with some people at Assent who say that individual trading groups offer training for newbies. It would appear that Assent sorta follows the franchise model and maybe newbies need to go one step down and see one of the head traders at these groups.


There compliance office is a stickler for rules, but they are squeaky clean since the Sungard buy-out. If your a legit trader, why would you want anything else?
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bobarino,
did you write your own interface for the API or did you hire a programmer? Also, which platform are you using to generate/backtest your automated strategies? thanks.
 
I did not do the entire programming for the API, I have done some maintenance since it was created.... but I think you need to use a professional programmer who understands the MOST EFFECIENT way to program. Any novice or intermediate programmer can write a "black box", but if it does not take advantage of technology and the speed of automated programming, whats the point?!?!


There are a few different ways to back test, but for my needs I mostly tested the algo live and did my tweaking on the fly. It cost me about $2K in silly losses to do it this way, but it gave me a MUCH clearer picture of what I was doing. Assent actually has an environment set-up that can replay market data from any day. However, I think they only recently started keeping data past a week or so. I found it to work pretty well for the initial phases of my development, but I simply had to test live to ensure the stratgey was applied correctly.


I never looked into it thoroughly, but I also know that there are 3rd party vendors who sell apps to back test. But they cost a lot more then the $2k I spent! Ha Ha
 
just want to chime in that since sunguard bought assent things have improved a lot. everyone at assent thought sunguard was nuts for buying a dying company but sunguard was right and most of those old traders are no longer working in finance. more importantly good old what's his name from assent got a huge payday when he sold his company. good for him because if it wasn't for sunguard assent would be what dimension is now instead. what i'm trying to say is assent is good, but that DOESN'T mean assent's LLCs are good (since some of them are legacy from the pre-sunguard days).
 
430: since you are comparing assent to dimension, in a negative light; then what is so bad about dimension? Why would someone prefer one over the other... Please elaborate on this board in a way that makes sense and doesn't sound jaded... I am just looking for neutral advice.

1- I understand that some are having platform problems, but there are probably platform problems at assent, or anywhere else there are computers. computers are machines, they break; they need updated or fixed. A new trader shouldn't be trying to sit there and scalp a lightning fast stock anyway.

2- ...a lot of new traders lose money, but hundreds-of-thousands of people across the world lose money everyday trading because they don't know what they are doing. The owners just set up the rules... if someone is dumb enough to blow up their account, that doesn't mean they were forced to. or that newbies at assent are not blowing up their accounts every day, too.

my point of view is that a new trader like myself would want to go with whoever gave them the lowest rates and the most potential to make money; trade stocks that are slow enough to avoid any platform troubles... and then after saving up sufficent capital re-evaluate your decision. Thoughts?
 
If assent has shaddy llcs they can be held accoutable. Act 20a




Both the 1933 Act and the 1934 Act impose liability for persons ("controlling persons'') who control the person who commits the violation. A broker-dealer may be held responsible for actions committed by its managers and registered representatives under the controlling person theory of liability under section 20(a) of the 1934 Act. 15 U.S.C. §78t(a). That statute states that any person who directly or indirectly controls any person who is liable for selling securities in violation of the act is liable to the same extent as the seller, unless he acted in good faith and did not directly or indirectly induce the act at issue. Section 20(a) makes any person who ``controls'' another liable for securities law violations to the same extent as the controlled person.


Do your homework before you get invloved. This business is ruthless and people lie all the time. Just be very carefull
 
Quote from stray_cougar:

430: since you are comparing assent to dimension, in a negative light; then what is so bad about dimension? Why would someone prefer one over the other... Please elaborate on this board in a way that makes sense and doesn't sound jaded... I am just looking for neutral advice.

1- I understand that some are having platform problems, but there are probably platform problems at assent, or anywhere else there are computers. computers are machines, they break; they need updated or fixed. A new trader shouldn't be trying to sit there and scalp a lightning fast stock anyway.

2- ...a lot of new traders lose money, but hundreds-of-thousands of people across the world lose money everyday trading because they don't know what they are doing. The owners just set up the rules... if someone is dumb enough to blow up their account, that doesn't mean they were forced to. or that newbies at assent are not blowing up their accounts every day, too.

my point of view is that a new trader like myself would want to go with whoever gave them the lowest rates and the most potential to make money; trade stocks that are slow enough to avoid any platform troubles... and then after saving up sufficent capital re-evaluate your decision. Thoughts?
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I was not trying to speak badly about Dimension or any other platform, I am giving my educated opinion after spending years doing research on different platforms. I think I also mentioned why I prefer Assent and that is because of speed and performance.

To your questions:

1) Yes, there are technology/platform problems everywhere, but saying that they are all the same is like saying democracy is the same in every country! Assent does not have the resources of some of the larger companies, but they are competent and prioritize their development pretty effectively. I work closely with some of the developers (since I use the API which is sorely lacking documentation) and I think they have designed an excellent infrastructure.

2) For a new trader, like yourself, of course low rates are very important. You don't have the volume or the margins like other traders do. My black boxes trade several million shares a day, my hand traders do another 2-3 million. I need to have a fast infrastructure and I need a system that will not have hiccups or delays. My algorithm trading is done by the millisecond, you may only need quote updates every few seconds. And my rates as Assent are the 2nd best I have ever seen, if you trade enough shares.... people will throw ANYTHING at you!


I certainly respect your opinion about low rates, I just feel each trader is different and you should go weigh the options for yourself. I speak highly of Assent because they have been good to me, I don't think there is some big reason to not use Dimension or any of the other platforms.
 
Quote from Bobarino:

I was not trying to speak badly about Dimension or any other platform,
I am giving my educated opinion after spending years doing research on different platforms...
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So, what is your educated opinion on the REDIPlus, HydraTrade, EchoPro and MLX Pro trading platforms?
 
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