Best Futures trading platform? Mac

S

schulzey

Hi everyone,
I'm just starting to trade futures and I only have Mac computers at my house and place of business (I don't this to be a discussion about whether macs or pcs are better please).

Most trading programs seem to be made for pc only. I found one online called FireTip which is PC or mac. They claim to be the only platform online that is mac compatible although I'm sure there are some web based platforms out there that run on either. I use speedtrader for stock trades but I've decided to not use their web based futures platform.

Does anyone have experience trading futures with FireTip? I've been running the demo and it's mostly smooth but I did have one glitch today that I'm not sure if it was my internet connection or the program.

Also there are lots of brokers that work with this platform. If I decide to use FireTip there is one called DT futures which seems very reasonable for commissions and they were great for margin requirements.

Does anyone have any experience with DT futures?

Again, thanks for all the help people!
 
Hi Schulzey,

I'm running NinjaTrader and Windows XP on Parallels Desktop.
Looking at its customizable interface and the great support, for me NinjaTrader has a Mac feel to it.
 
Suggest determining best Broker to fit your needs, then obtain equipment and platform supported by your Broker. Rather than selecting Broker to fit your existing equipment...

All platforms, charting programs, front ends, etc... involve a learning curve.

imho, it is far more important in selecting a reliable brokerage for the long term and spend the learning curve on products that are supported by it...

Time is far better spent on trading than continually learning "new" platforms.

I like and trust IB, portfolio margin, global acct, worldwide markets, healthy 3rd party support, etc...

As previous poster's mentioned, you can always run windows 7 on a Mac, so you really aren't limited to MAC only products...
 
Hey,
I too have only mac computers and have no intensions on buying a PC anytime soon. So here is what I have done.

For Forex Trading:
I am using MBTrading MT4 via parallel

For Futures & Options:
I use optionsXpress Xtend

Xtend runs on mac and has been running very smooth. No glitches, no complains. The best part is optionsXpress provides free streaming quotes. Although their brokerage is high. But since I do only 2-3 trades a month, it is acceptable to me.

Hope this helps.
 
ThinkOrSwim's stuff runs on a Mac. I believe IB's stuff does too, not certain.
Those are the two most popular brokerages on this site, by the way.
Anything browser-based will obviously run on both, and there is a lot of browser-based stuff out there, including a nice version of TOS (in some ways their browser-based stuff is actually superior for trade entry of options trades; futures is a different story).
And of course as mentioned you can always get something like Parallels to run Windows on a Mac. I haven't tried it, but normally there is a performance penalty associated with running something like that.
 
I trade on a MacPro 12-core, MBP, MBAir, and IBTWS runs great on all of them. www.prorealtime.com for charting; excellent feed and graphics. I only run windows when I must.

IB has native OS X, browser and mobile versions.
 
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