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You want perfection in electronic trading, however I've searched high and
low in the futures industry and have yet to find it. For blazing speed with
instant e-mini fills, it's TimberHill hands down - that's the name of the
game for me. For low cost, it's TimberHill hands down. For reliability,
TimberHill is as good or better than anything else out there which is not a
big compliment to the futures industry - I too have had the occasional
disconnects, especially in early January, however things have settled down
again. For customer service, good phone backup, and lower margins go
elsewhere. Out of hundreds of trades, I've had one open trade directly
affected by a TH outage and I figure that's a cost of trading via TH just as
zero slippage is a benefit of trading via TH.
I have not used it, but based on everything I've heard, am considering
moving my alternate/backup account from LeoWeb to Lind OnLine. If LOL could
provide identical globex execution speed, I would pay the few bucks more per
round turn.
Earl
-----Original Message-----
From: Michael Guess <mjg@xxxxxxx>
To: Earl Adamy <eadamy@xxxxxxxxxx>; omega-list@xxxxxxxxxx
<omega-list@xxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Wednesday, February 17, 1999 10:19 PM
Subject: Re: LeoWeb or TimberHill?
>At 04:30 PM 2/17/99 -0700, Earl Adamy wrote:
>>I have both LeoWeb and Timberhill's e-mini workstation installed for
trading
>>the e-mini exclusively. I had LeoWeb first and got fed up with slow
response
>>times (5-10 seconds) and high commissions for a process which is fully
>>electronic. Once I installed the TH system, I never looked back to LeoWeb.
>>The TH system runs circles around LeoWeb in speed of fills (rarely more
than
>>1-2 seconds) and includes real-time e-mini quotes (including b/a and size)
>>which are faster than any of the major real-time feeds . Commissions are
>>low - under $10 round turn all inclusive (providing you trade minimum of
two
>>lots). There are some real disadvantages to using TH: larger margins,
you'll
>>need an account with another broker for backup, limit orders only - not a
>>problem for those who don't buy breakouts (they have announced a version
due
>>later this month which will accept market orders), and customer service by
>>e-mail only. TH is not perfect as there are occasional short service
>>outages.
>>
>>Earl
>
>Earl,
>
>I've leased the full strength Timberhill Workstation by Interactive Brokers
>for awhile now & while I agree the execution speed is unrivaled, for me
>there are some serious considerations about their software & their Support
>(Help Desk).
>
>I've had several disconnects/day at times, apparently due to the program's
>sensitivity to internet bottlenecks (TH & I have each checked our ends/ISPs
>re whether the problems were w/ either of us). In the process you lose any
>open orders (stops, etc.) I've also had orders disappear from the screen @
>the moment of transmittal (no continuing status to advise you so you're
>left guessing), only to appear in my Executions Window later. Neither of
>these problems could be corrected by TH. Waiting several minutes for trade
>status to be determined by the Help Desk is an unacceptable eternity. You
>say your support is via email? How do you feel about that? What experiences
>have you had?
>
>I've taken a month off from using Timberhill. If I elect to return, using
>their downloadable software, I need it to be absolutely reliable, as having
>to re-enter orders via broker/phone or relaunching their software if it
>crashes/disconnects turns me off. And that's after dealing w/ their
>non-broker "help" personnel only to realize they can't accept orders from
>you when you discover you must take some action.
>
>I truly want this to work. I feel that trading the minis w/ blazing
>execution, minimal slip, @ low overhead commissions is finally a viable
>alternative to the volatility, slippage of the big contract. Hopefully, the
>past limitations can be weeded out.
>
>Michael
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