With regards to the various complaints, here is my experience.....
1 - Up until late January, certain Nasdaq Stocks would show an overnight value of zero. By 9:15 am or the 1st tick of the day, that would be corrected and show the correct stock price. I panicked the 1st time I saw it, then compared the bid ask spread with my charting software and saw a pattern. any stock that EOD had a Bid ask spread of .01 - 2400 would glitch. They have since corrected that problem. I have never had an unauthorized transfer.
2 - I tend to get emails answered within 2-3 hours, When I call I get a Human and I usually get my issue routed to the correct CSR and corrected within 5 minutes. Since all these concerns were raised (the 1st 2-3 months of service, they have been resolved. Realize Sogo is less than 1 year old.)
3 - ACH's move this quick. Initiate transfer on Monday, Trade No later than Wednesday. This is a Normal Occurance for me.
4 - It took 2 days to get my account up and going (all paperwork faxed in.) Another 2 days for the 1st ACH to occur. SO I was trading withing 4 days of me filling out the online App.
5 - I dont have website issues. Had one issue pre market (around 7am) Emailed them and received a response back 15 minutes later and the website issue was resolve 30 minutes before market open.
6 - ACH withdrawals, 2 days to post to my Bank Account.
7 - Margin is T+3
8 - I averaged about 60 Trades per month with Sogo. Never a bad Fill. Only one time did the order not process immediately (when I looked at market depth, there was no one for me to sell to.)
9 - I ACAT'd from Etrade and the funds & stocks were transferred in 5 days. Of course I provided all that they asked for and the account type, SS# and name matched. If that doesnt match you will have problems and your ACAT will be rejected. If you are actively trading while your ACAT is being processed, unsettled stocks wont get transferred. ACAT 101. Put it in, and stop trading.
They are not perfect, but they are worlds better than what I had experienced at Etrade. I consider myself the hands off trader. Dont get in my way, I wont get in yours, Just make sure your junk works.
As I stated, the only "major" issue I had was with Margin Calls when I was all Cash. It took 2 days for them to find the problem, but they fixed it, and none of my cash positions were liquidated. Seems someone had mis-entered my data when I changed from a cash to a margin account. They weren't butt-holes about it, they were very apologetic.....
All the bad wind, I think, was because they were a "startup" since then it's been smooth as silk.
I plan to keep Sogo Elite (especially since IB just upped their commission cap)
I have TOS, IB and Sogo, and I am happy with all 3. They each have their place. TOS and SOGO are mainly for stocks IB for futures, I am planning to automate a FOREX trading system with IB using Investor RT & Autotrader. Let's hope it works.
TOS is very competitive (negotiated rates), though I like the $1 minimum that SOGO will charge on a per share basis. The MAJORITY of my trades are 200 shares or less. (I'm not big time yet) My Penny stock Trades are 1000-2000 shares at a time at this point, but I dont do a ton of them (YET) Though I have had some nice movers
. My strategy wont allow me to trade larger yet (Dont want to overtrade, did that and lost too much TOOO FAST!!!) Learned that lesson real quick. Thank God I didn't blow out. It was enough to scare me right back to my rules. LOL.
I am happy SOGO has gone platform based.
Note, they have not officially advertised Elite either. I got wind of it in a Barrons Article. I think someone jumped the gun. I was told to call them Thursday so they could process my transfer app in full, Unfortunately I was getting tires and a battery yesterday, so that got overlooked. LOL.
However I did speak with someone who gave me quite a bit of good info about the elite product.
I have listed all they have given me by email, or verbally.
I understand there will be a Demo of their software as well.
