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Hi all,
I am on the list because I have been a TS4.0 End of day user in the past.
Recently after having traded in a Level II trading room for a few months I
have decided I will do much better if I trade from home using internet DSL
high speed. Being a bit under financed I am scrambling to find a low cost
charting / Level II / brokerage house setup that meats the most basic needs
listed below. Real tick serves these needs but is $250 in addition to my
current level II program (TradeCast) fee which is $200 per month. I was
hoping to get this monthly cost down. I gather TradeStation Pro is $300 per
month and has both the order execution and the charting combined. I am
cringing at the thought of spending an additional $1,500 U.S. to bring my
TS4.0 EOD up to real time status then paying an unknown amount on top of
that for an intraday feed. TradeStation Pro sounds like a better alternative
especially if I can get a current customer deal. However I am in a situation
where other products are to be seriously considered.
Any suggestions regarding any of the items below would be much appreciated.
I am sure there are others in the same boat too.
I am looking for a Level II trading firm providing these items and meeting
the criteria.
Charting:
Can Chart Stocks (Kind of obvious right! Slight understatement?)
Can Chart minute closing prices on four futures: S&P500(day and Mini),
NASDAQ100(day and mini). Overnight Mini futures are important to assist with
opening bell trading.
Can Chart 1-minute intervals (candle bars) back at least 2 days
Can produce an overlay of 1 futures closing prices behind the stocks candle
bars to see if the stock it is currently following the futures.
I can draw trend lines manually (these auto extend but it would be nice to
be able to shut these off or at least limit them)
Can draw horizontal lines manually
Optionally can draw limited length horizontal lines manually.
Can zoom in on regions of the chart.
Optionally but highly preferred can step back in its zoom feature (real tick
can zoom multiple times but it can not step back)
Optionally If it can trip an alarm upon a break of the trend line this would
be excellent. TS4.0 can do this but again it is expensive! I can live with
out it if need be.
Can run charts on a second monitor (I gather Win98 can actually handle up to
4 monitors).
Can preferably run on win98 but if I need NT so be it. I will put it on a
second partition.
Can take an intraday Internet DSL data feed (I am not even sure if TS4.0
real time can do this?)
I have an 32meg All in wonder card in a 500 mhz Pentium III with 256 meg of
memory and a 17 inch monitor. A thechnical friend suggested trying the T.V.
output on this card to produce the charts which would save me a fair bit. I
am wondering if anyone has tried this.
Level II
All the standard stuff (stock window, T&S, Market minder, etc)
SOES/ISLD/ISB/Instinet
Preferably programmable function keys for order entry providing speed (I
gather TradeCast initiated this standard)
Optionally Auto Selection of order routing which I can limit to ISLD and
SOES if I wish (I gather Cyber trader can do this).
Stock price Alarms: Prices rises/falls to X price, Price moves up/down by X
amt., Price rises/falls X percentage,
The brokerage firm's reliability:
A U.S. or Canadian firm that is not going to disappear on me such that I can
close my account and get my money out. I would like to do some checks in
this area and being Canadian I am not sure how I would go about checking a
U.S. firm. Some Canadians have a U.S. postal address for the purpose of
getting a U.S. account. The firm must accept an account size of $20,000 U.S.
The brokerage firm's Minimum trades and commissions:
I trade anywhere from 2 to 10 times per day using mostly a Trend line break
out system in conjunction with extremes in the market and specific chart
patterns (flags, double tops, etc). Since I am still refining my system and
struggling to stay in business I tend to keep my number of trades low and go
for the extremes in the market with a longer hold period. Currently trading
between 100 to 400 shares I am looking for firms charging anywhere from
$11.00 U.S. per round trip (that was the in-house rate I had for 200 shares
a side) to maximum of $30.00 per round trip at 200 shares a side and 1-10
trades a day. At $30.00 per round trip and 200 shares I have no choice but
to take extreme trades which warrant a 1 or 2 hour hold period minimum
(sometimes all day). At $30.00 per round trip scalping as I see it would be
only possible with 800+ shares. I am not that good yet.
Again, any help in any area would be much appreciated.
Thanks,
John Bowles
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