ECHOTRADE

exce26,

As the old saying goes, "if you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all." So was my experience with Bright.

Buttermilk,

I am now connected through a 512K DSL and it runs like a champ. I tried a cable modem, but there are times when you can tell the rest of the neighborhood is downloading from napster and using your bandwidth. Personally, I recommend DSL over cable if you have the choice. My connection is great.

white,

Once you go to any professional firm, you give up insurance on your account. That is part of the game at all of the firms because of their required structure. The name of the game is risk management, and I agree with rtharp. I have found echo to be more strict on risk management than any other firm that I found.

GeorgeSoros,

I don't actually pay for First Alert. If you trade over 1 million shares a month and trade remote it works out to be free. I have no experience with e-signal or Q-feed so I cannot compare them. I can say the only other quote package I like and would use if there was no FA is AT Financial, that is also a very nice platform.

Rushman,

I sent an email to them and asked them why the website says that, they said that was no longer the case, they had just overlooked that sentence. I just checked and they already removed that sentence from the website. They started offering First Alert through the internet late last year sometime I think it was, they have developed a proprietary technology that is really neat. Instead of running the software on your desktop, they run it on high-end servers in Chicago and send you pixel information that compiles into a screen shot of what the server is doing, something like that. So instead of needing a DUAL 500 Mhz-Pentium 3 with 512 megs of RAM and a 768K bandwitdh connection (the old FA specs, which is why only offices could run it for the most part), it can now be run on a cable or 128K DSL with a 200 Mhz Pentium 2 with 64 megs of Ram. This is why they can offer FA to all the remote traders and no other firm (that I know of) can. As far as I know they are the only trading firm in the world that can deliver quotes the way they do, and I can certify that the speed of the quotes blow the doors off any other platform that I run next to it. They now offer this to all their remote traders as well. As a First Alert fan, this was big for me.

-Jim

 
Thanks for the reply, TraderJim. You say that Echo's charting leaves something to be desired. Does this assessment apply only to Echotrader or to BOTH Echotrader and First Alert? In other words, does First Alert raise the charting standard sufficiently or is the whole package (both software platforms combined) deficient?

Can you give us a brief idea of which charting features are present and which are absent with respect to both Echotrader and First Alert (i.e. a brief comparison between the two and perhaps between both and third party platforms)? If a third party charting feed service is still required over and above First Alert, do you use such a service and if so which one? Finally, do you take advantage of bullets with Echo, and if so how easy are they to execute? Thanks!

Rushman
 
Rushman,

That only applies to ECHOtrader. First Alert's charts are legendary, very very powerful. That's why I use it, I have yet to find another package that can do what I need. First Alert allows you to anything you can dream up, the filters as well reign supreme. There are many pro firms that use First Alert in addition to echo for these reasons. Echo's just the only one that can deliver a reliable version to remote traders.

It is hard to compare ECHOtrader and First Alert, they are inherently so different. ECHOtrader started as purely a great order entry module, and later added charts and the rest. First Alert started as a great filtering and charting platform, and later added order entry. You can tell when you play with both that they had different priorities in mind when they were created. I use both together so I can utilize the strong points of each, and redundancy is also nice.

I use the electronic bullets almost daily, I could not live without them. They are very easy to execute, you type into a seperate window what stock and how many shares and hit enter and that's it. Couldn't be easier.

-Jim
 
Jim,
I have a question on order entry with Echotrade that maybe you can answer?
With Interactive Brokers, if I have a limit order in the system I can walk the stock up and down with the up and down arrow keys and by hitting my transmit key I can instantaneously change the order to my new price without going through a "order cancel" procedure. It basically cancels and updates my limit price automatically.
For example if I have a bid at 60.5 and the stock starts to tank I just quickly lower my bid and hit transmit without cancelling and re-entering a new order.

Does Echotrade operate like that or would I have to cancel and then load up another order?

thanks
 
>With Interactive Brokers, if I have a limit
>order in the system I can walk the stock up
>and down with the up and down arrow keys and
>by hitting my transmit key I can instantaneously
>change the order to my new price without going
>through a "order cancel" procedure

Oh, so now everyone knows about my (second) favorite IB feature. :-)

When I learned that trick I nearly fell over from glee.

JB
 
I'm not sure how you are using that feature with IB, I have never traded there, but I scalp a lot of stock and you described what I do all day. The one drawback that I see to the way you are doing it, I may be wrong but this is what it sounds like, is that the system is waiting for the first order to cancel then reentering a new order for you. One better thing than that even is that with a professional firm you do not have to wait to get a cancel before you can send a new order. I do exactly what you described, uptick and downtick my price then with one click hit another price, I like how I don't have to worry about buying power so waiting for cancels is not an issue.

-Jim
 
Redi+ is similar in that you can double click on an order change the price then send it and it will replace the old order with the new one... but my experience is that it actually waits for the out before sending the new order. Otherwise there is always a risk of getting filled on both orders.

Fletch
 
>I may be wrong but this is what it
>sounds like, is that the system is
>waiting for the first order to cancel
>then reentering a new order for you.

You may technically be correct TraderJimR, but since this is handled ECN server side (through the transmission of a single FIX protocol order), the cancel/update process is essentially instantaneous. IB's implementation of this is worlds apart from any of my other brokers.

>One better thing than that even is that
>with a professional firm you do not have
>to wait to get a cancel before you can
>send a new order. [snip] I like how I
>don't have to worry about buying power
>so waiting for cancels is not an issue.

I may be wrong but this is what it sounds like, is that you are subjecting yourself to double liability and you're saying that this is fine because you are at a pro firm with more buying power. You put in a new order first and then you cancel the old one.

As someone who has the account and buying power to enter 10x lots anytime I want, I still position size based on harsh money management principles. I would still prefer to use a system that doesn't require the double liability that I think you are describing.

This is not a suggestion that your method places you outside acceptable risk for a trader of your skill. I'm sure you could manage the occasional double lot just fine. I just don't agree that it's a trading 'advantage' to utilize a system that gives you the buying power to expose yourself to double liability when what we all really want is just to move our order price without having to step out of the market.

JB


 
Sounds like the systems both can operate in a similar manner. It's probably just a function of becoming comfortable with specific different hotkeys.

The main point of my question was that with the IB system that I trade with I don't have to specifically click a "CXL" button or cancel hotkey. I just adjust the price and hit "T" for Transfit(BUY/SELL) and my limit price changes instantaneously saving me the step of cancelling. So I'm skipping the process of "CXL"ing.

Considering I haven't traded with other systems I guess I'm not too familiar with the conventional Level II order entry boxes.
 
One thing some professional traders do is channel trade. They will trade in a channel of selling the highs and buying the lows and having orders of sell sitting above the market and to buy below the market. SOmetimes they will also place additional orders below their lower buy as extra support and orders above their sells limits as extra resistance Since then the stock would be extra extended in a certain direction and this trader would like even more of the stock.

The cancel feature that is mention above would stop this.

rtharp
 
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