zBoy
I trade with IB since March 2000 and can only confirm what you said. Very happy with them.
Only drawback is, you can't access your IB account 24hrs/7days a week, like with a browser broker.
For the time being, I'am travelling a lot and I need to place orders for positiontrades sometimes on weekends or outside of usual market-hours. Datek is my preferred choice for those trades, unless IB comes up with 24/7 solution and enables traders to access their account from every PC with a web-connection.
I have also trouble with IB when trying to login in from behind a firewall ( i.e. from my office ).
TWS ( and JTWS ) currently don't support access through a firewall and dynamic IP adress translation.TWS and JTWS need a dedicated connection to your PC
Just a hint with regard to IB's TWS and pulling up several ECN's for a stock :
When you type in the symbol, you get a list of all ECN's and the best exec. route.
Now you can highlight all possible order routes by clicking on the first line and keep the "shift" key on your keyboard pressed down.Then scroll with your mouse to the last ECN line displayed.
Once you highlighted all routes, just hit the "Enter" key on your keyboard and - voila - all routes are displayed in your order-window. It's working just like in any other windows application ( copy & paste )
You can also select only the ECN's you want to be displayed by using the Strg key and than hit "Enter".
You can do this for option-contracts likewise.
If you have a soundcard installed in your PC, turn it on. You'll hear a "ping" each time an order has been executed.
So you don't have to open your execution-window, unless you want to make sure, that you got filled correctly
(size & price).
For fast trading, I recommend to use the hotkeys together with your preferenced setup for tradesize.
Nothing faster out there.
Datek :
Last year, I made a proposal to Jerry Medved to integrate a trading interface for Datek in his RT software QuoteTracker
( For those who don't know QuoteTracker :
QT is a free RT software, basically the same as ProphetStation from Prophet-Finance, but works with many RT quote providers,i.e Datek's free streamer quotes, and offers more features as PS.)
The latest version, QT 2.0, has this trading interface and it's fast - it's really point and click.
You can even use the new DatekDirect* features, which enable you to select between various ECN's / MM's or best execution for order-routing.
QT has also build in Island and Arca streaming orderbook windows + colour-coded raw data (= Times & Sales ).
Usually, the trading interface and confirmation window are attached above the portfolio-pane in QT. But you can detach them, alter the size of the windows and place them everywhere you like on your monitor's screen.
New QT Beta has now also Fibonacci-retracement's as drawing tool for RT Charts.
Datek-Direct customers get also Level 2 quotes ( not only Island or Arca ). QT has the ability to display them as well.
The trading-interface allows date-customers to trade without going through Datek's website.
Just doubleclick on a bid / ask quote in your portfolio-window and the order is automatically filled into the trading window. Use the scroll-lists to determine the trade-size and limit-price, click Buy or Sell and submit.
The trading interface keeps your password for the complete trading-session, sono need to type in anything.
Advanced order-routing works likewise, but you can selct by a mousecklick, to which ECN you would like to route your order.
After clicking on "Submit" button, a small window pop's up showing the order you just submitted and ask for another click to confirm.All this happens in split-second time.
Very simple and efficient.
Submitted orders and their current status are displayed in the confirmation window.
If you change your mind about an order, ( and it has not been filled, of course ) just highlight it and click on cancel.
The last submitted order is highlighted automatically
for faster cancelling if necessary.
All orders you submitted during the trading day are collected and displayed in the confirmation window and you can check them every time you want.
The confirmation window is auto-refreshed every x-seconds
( depends on your selection of refresh cycle ).
But you can also use the "refresh" button every time you want.
I used QT 2.0 for some intraday trades from my office last week and I must admit, that order execution ( in stocks like AKAM, PDLI etc. ) went through with the same speed as with IB.
Using the QT interface improves Datek's speed significantly, because there's no need to load and go through several websites. It's much better than Datek's own Streamer-solution, although you can use the same free RT quotes.
For options-trading, you have still to go through Datek's website.
More Info :
http://www.quotetracker.com
