Quote from Fast_Trader:
At your trading level, I would look into something like X Trader. That's what the PROs use
-Fast
Fast, I think I make a lot more at this stage than the "pro's" do, and I can that without a "pro" platform.
Man, I love the ButtonTrader frontend - It's the best there is. It even beats X_Trader IMO. Seriously. The built-in T charts and the running strategies beat the crap out of X. As long as TT doesn't get a bit more innovative with their stuff, I won't go there. Plus, I look at 3 exchanges. Every other exchange on TT is +250. Why pay $1.5/month (18K/year) just for execution if on IB, I get all the exchanges for $10 or so, or free for that matter? Think I'll get those extra 18K/year back from my better trading with X_Trader? LOL! Maybe, maybe not! Either way you slice it, 18K is plenty of cash. Remember, most of my trades are in the market over a second before they get executed. So I don't need lightning-fast execution, either.
That said, though, the comms are a different story - so I'm thinking about FFastTrade now, because their comms are far the lowest - plus they don't charge any extra for exchanges, the way TT does. Still, do I want to pay $7K/year for the platform? Why feed another vendor? What if I have an unprofitable streak and still have those running costs? What if I go on a holiday and have to keep paying for all this $hit? It's always something worth thinking about.
I'm in my early twens, and I think I've come quite a way because of this thinking, in all the businesses I've endeavoured to. Not because I'm a "prodigy", but because I don't feed the "machine", buy and "expend" for all the marvellous things out there everybody is so willing to pay for.
Remember, wealth isn't about what you earn - It's about what you
keep. There's a million and one people out there making 500K/year and still getting nowhere. I do. I always get ahead, and very nicely, and at a very low cost base. I don't need to sustain super-duper-income to avoid going broke, either. I'm a lot more "secure" than most people out there.
Think about it.