Onsite Trading

excellent commentary, I thought this thread died, long time ago. Yes, they did package all the accounts and shift over to AB Watley. Who really knows why?, however, its far better than letting it fall apart and actually expecting the SIPC safety net to kick in. I don't think that catch net has been oiled in years. Also, Gary Mednick, President of the firm is also a NASD Arbitrator, so just imagine calling them into Arbitration (equivalent of a specialized court / lawsuit action), and having no requirement that he "recuse himself" because of either familiarty with the parties named in the action, or because of direct ownership / management of one of the parties. Also imagine an industry leader, such as someone who was appointed to the NASD Arbitration panel, having his firm default. Doesn't sound right.

excellent commentary on Echo as a firm. Since they were associated with Bright, then the chest(nut) hasn't fallen too far from the tree, literally, and in being in Phoenix vs. LasVegas, which is HQ to Bright.

excellent commentary on the other firm offering .99 trades. Seems that the more these firms offer growth in shared effort with their "most desired traders", namely us, once the markets return to normal, and we're all swinging big derricks at the docks (figuratively) and counting up between 300,000 shares and up, per day. Firms, such as Onsite that virtually because of their business model of $20 per ticket (while it was accurately stated that 100k shares = $24k monthly comm) insist that they "will survive" whether their "most desired traders" survive or not, have just been handed the

Arbitration decision.

Guess who lost?....

Here's to continued return to previous times, high volumes, unreasonably profitable times and LOW COMMISSIONS!!
 
WarEagle,

It's imperative that you keep commisions low initially. I strongly recommend a per-share commision schedule, such as IB, Echo and others.

I found it fairly difficult to gain enough confidence to consistiently pull the trigger. With $20 commisions it's going to be virtually impossible to overcome all your small losses and break-evens trading with small lots.
 
dimeplay28 -

Rather than $.02 a share and $.99 minimum, I'd rather use IB at $.01 per share up to 500 shares and $.005 thereafter. What's so special about their rate?
 
Vikana,

Thanks for the reply. After a lot of research since I first started this thread I have decided, for now, to stick with futures. I agree with your advice 100%. My main attraction to an office was to be around other traders throughout the day, for the comraderie and the ability to learn from others. It is not worth $20/ticket. Perhaps someday there will be trading rooms for futures traders (preferably with IB-like commisisons).

Kirk
 
Originally posted by vikana
WarEagle,

It's imperative that you keep commisions low initially. I strongly recommend a per-share commision schedule, such as IB, Echo and others.

I found it fairly difficult to gain enough confidence to consistiently pull the trigger. With $20 commisions it's going to be virtually impossible to overcome all your small losses and break-evens trading with small lots.
More...

Very true. But once you start trading large sizes (2000 shares and over), then per ticket charges become more attractive, especially if you are not charged for partials and given a reasonable length of time to get filled in multiple transactions under one ticket. For example, a 3000 share fill at Cyber costs $15, and you have upto 2mins to get fully filled for the price of 1 ticket. Under IB, the cost is $17.50, so there is no real advantage for per share charging with large sizes, unless you are position trading and wish to pare out gradually.

But for small lots, I fully agree with you ... if you are NOT trading with per share pricing, it doesn't make sense. From what I can gather, Echo Trade seems to be an excellent choice.
 
Mon, Sept 17 was horrible, as usual in dealing with Onsite and their chornically undependable systems. Although they use SLK's Redi+, as well as other systems, their executions continue to be the worst, and plagued with delays in cancellations as well as extremely bad fills.

Just imagine during a spike, caping the high of the 3min bar on purchases and the low of the inverse spike/dip on sales; only to see the following 3min-5min period be trades and trends in the opposite of your newly established position. Then imagine trying to execute some form of "principal protecting closure" of position (whether sale, where there was a purchase or buy-in for a short position), only to then have the trend reverse and make the original position turn positive.

This is the classic rendention of the whipsaw, however, let's delve beneath the surface and look at what may be happening (speculated guess) that causes one's positions to almost always go bad from the jump and then perhaps get worse or reverse, long after one's stomach has turned over twice:

1) perhaps someone who has override and can see grouped positions and executions from a superivsory perspective, whether at the local branch, head office, clearing offices or whatever is screwing the pooch by taking paired or opposite trades and destroying the trend

2) perhaps exposure of client positions to others is being done at some level whether known or unknown (through some leaks in their security, or the security of the clearing agent) and being posted on a trading board as an opposite strategy. For example, seeing on a trading board, where hundreds of other traders might take positions, and these collectively and consistently coincidently being in the opposite of the position that you took

3) perhaps there's no way to successfully make money through these accounts

I met a number of traders who enmasse left one of their MD offices and moved over to another professional trading firm to their tremendous profitability. The angst and frustration on the face and conversation of that trader over the events described above and other random and unexplainable events (screw ups with trades/software execution) only serves to confirm the frustration those of us who are still with Onsite have with them.

I've virtually given up trying to diasnose the problems and frustrations and possible solutions to using them as a broker. :confused: :mad:
 
limitdown
are you in onsite's LLC?(as a pro) if so that sucks if your $ is locked up. If not maybe its time to jump ship. I'm with TerraNova never had much problem with them...but now I'm limited to swing due to new margin rule...might be going over to Echo(got the series7) it seems like it might be a good shop.
Good luck.
 
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