Well, I was hoping for an answer first! An asterix means that the order is held locally on your PC and not held on the exchange servers. The so-called "advantage" in this is being able to 'hide' your stops. I consider it a major disadvantage because the 1-3 seconds resulting delay in executing the order can mean an extra tick slippage. Plus, if your PC blew up ...bang goes your order. Plus the liquidity in the ES/NQ is so great that the notion of needing to hide your stops is silly.
Some versions of J-Trader come with both asterixed AND non-asterixed stop/stop-limit orders. This is the ultimate flexibility cos you can choose each time. However, some versions of J-Trader come ONLY with asterixed stop-limit orders. I want to know what version he's got!
In the past, I've previously posed the question to a prospective broker thus: "Are your stop-limit orders held resting on the exchange servers". It always gets the answer "sure, of course they are" even when that's not true. This may be true of their stop orders but not their stop-limit orders. Some brokers just don't know their own software!
So I rephrase it a different way: tell me what you see on your screen? Then I get the actual answer I'm looking for.
I use stop-limit orders (for entry) 100% of the time. A system that doesn't timestamp and hold them on the exchange servers is no good to me. $5.90 RT suddenly becomes twice that if I'm paying uneccessary slippage.
Anyway, my cover is blown, so now I risk getting the unqualified answer "Of course our orders are held on exchange servers"!!