Tradestation

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brokershopping

I sent Tradestation a list of questions about their brokerage policies, and they were kind enough to answer almost half of them. (I really don't understand it. You would think it would be worth their while to give complete and thought-out responses to inquiries by potential customers. Most business like getting new customers;-)

Maybe some current users could help me out with the questions that were ignored...

1. On the web site, it says "An Equity Account that trades fewer than 10 times per month (30 times per quarter) ... is deemed non-active and may lose access to TradeStation" Does "10 times per month" mean 10 executions (either buy or sell) or 10 round trips?

2. In parenthesis it says "30 times per quarter" Is the "minimum figure" calculated on a quartarly basis or monthly basis? In other words, if I traded 5 times one month, 5 times the second month, and 20 times the third month would I meet the minimum?

3. Do you plan to offer fully automated trading in the future? (ie, trades can be executed without any manual intervention)?


The next one they answered, but I don't know if I have confidence in the reply...

My IRA is valued at $xx,000 and my wifes is $xx,000. (Her's is under the $30k minimum balance, mine is over). I understand you have a $30K account minimum, but since we would be linking the accounts and the sum would far exceed the minimum, would her's be allowed? - the answer was she would only be able to phone orders in, not trade on-line. (I am rolling my eyes and shaking my head now)


Apart from that, is the data any good? I was thinking it might be a good way to get rid of Q-charts. Also her National Discount Brokers account became an Ameritrade account, and I just can't stand that. I need to find somewhere else to put it. I already have an IB account and I want to spread it around a little.


Thanks for the help!
 
Brokershopping,

>Apart from that, is the data any good? I was thinking it might be >a good way to get rid of Q-charts. Also her National Discount >Brokers account became an Ameritrade account, and I just can't >stand that. I need to find somewhere else to put it. I already >have an IB account and I want to spread it around a little.


I can only answer this question. I have used Q-Charts and I am currently using Tradestation 6. QCharts, IMHO, is considerably inferior to TS 6 as far as reliability and speed.

As far as a broker, I use IB, but I am not happy with the speed or executions that I get. It has been very eratic for me, sometimes works well, others it doesn't.

I have come to the conclusion that in order to really evaluate the "online" brokers, one has to go to a prop firm like Bright or Echo, etc, trade there for a while, and see what kinds of executions you get there.

nitro.
 
I have a TradeStation account and based on my discussions with them, my understanding of your questions are:

>>1. On the web site, it says "An Equity Account that trades fewer than 10 times per month (30 times per quarter) ... is deemed non-active and may lose access to TradeStation" Does "10 times per month" mean 10 executions (either buy or sell) or 10 round trips?<<

10 executions.

>>2. In parenthesis it says "30 times per quarter" Is the "minimum figure" calculated on a quartarly basis or monthly basis? In other words, if I traded 5 times one month, 5 times the second month, and 20 times the third month would I meet the minimum?<<

I was told it was calculated on a quarterly basis so that you can "make up" for a specific month later, as you described.

>>3. Do you plan to offer fully automated trading in the future? (ie, trades can be executed without any manual intervention)?<<

I have heard that TS intends to offer fully automated trading in the future. This information was from a message board I read (can't remember which one), not from one of their reps.

>>Apart from that, is the data any good?<<

Yes, their data is excellent -- accurate and fast.

>>I was thinking it might be a good way to get rid of Q-charts.<<

I did just that, after having QCharts for a couple of years. I've used TS for about 3 months now and it has never been down a single minute. Maybe 2-3 times a week, however, I noticed that the data will be interrupted for a couple of seconds and then go back to normal. I don't know if this is due to my ISP (cable) or TS's servers.

I am far happier with TS than QCharts.
 
I used both qchart and Tradestation and I find qchart much more powerful and efficient than TS and even than most professional softwares such as cqg and so on.
 
Just thought I'd update this discussion with Tradestation's new minimum trading requirements.

For equity accounts the miminum is now 20 trades per month (60 per quarter).....that's executions, of course.
 
Yeah baby! Found a bug in EasyLanguage. Here's the repro's if anybody would care to second:

------repro-----
Start with an empty workspace
Hit the New Chart button (left hand side)
Enter QQQ (and prompt for format)
Select a date of 12/06/01, 1 minute, 2 days back
Select OK
Select File, New
Select the Easy Language tab
Select Strategy
Select OK
Enter a name of aaabug and hit OK
Erase all the text and enter:
---
if time=1031 then
begin
buy this bar on close;
setstopcontract;
setprofittarget(0.10);

end;
---
Hit F3 to verify
Select the chart
Right click and select insert strategy
Select aaabug
Hit close
Select View, Strategy Performance
Select the trades tab
Note that the first trade shows it hit the profit target of $259. Since we accepted the default settings of zero commision and slippage, and 100 shares that's a violation of the SetTargetProfit of $.10/share. Instead the trigger seems to be about $2.59/share.

----------
Further I have more sinister ideas about what this group is up to.
 
I've found some other problems that lend me to believe that TS will steal your profitable ideas and put errors in your code. I admit this is not a really widely distributed study, but I have run into a similiar bug with a work around to the above problem. I freely admit that I could very well be very wrong, but I created a work around to the above problem and still ran into trouble with my market solution. Either there are multiple bugs in EasyLanguage and I have coincendentially run across them both, or TS is deliberately bugging my code, and stealing the good ideas for themselves. I'm not sure which is more likely, and leave that call up to you. I admit that the concept of bugs in the compiler is a loser's excuse. But, I've been writing code since 1978 (professionally since 1988). I know how to code, have even acheived my MCSD (yeah, I'm a Microsoft Bigot). I've submitted the previous issue as a bug, and am keeping the other issues under wraps to see how TS responds. I'll post the results here.
 
Nitro wrote:

>>I have come to the conclusion that in order to really evaluate the "online" brokers, one has to go to a prop firm like Bright or Echo, etc, trade there for a while, and see what kinds of executions you get there. <<

Having come from the Prop side of the industry (I owned a prop trading firm), to the Retail side (VP Marketing @ Terra Nova Trading) I don't think you're going to find what you're looking for by going to the prop firms.

With good connectivity and a good retail Direct Access system, in many cases, you'll have an advantage over the guys in a prop firm, who may share T-1 access with too many traders to allow their data to keep up during a busy opening.

I'm sure that many cynical readers (yes, there may be a few cynics out there) would expect all roads in this posting to lead to Terra Nova. That's not my objective here.

I just wanted to point out that many prop firms are inferior from a technological and connectivity standpoint. Evaluate the Direct Access sector by comparing one broker to another.

Here's one more thing: Don't get me wrong. Terra Nova's executions are rocking (ranked #1 by Barron's in a comparison of Direct Access Brokers), but it's been my experience that execution plays less a role in trader success than do education and preparedness.

Hope this helps.
 
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