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Alex,
Vast majority of TradeStation online version users (those that really
matters - because they actually trade) pay no subscription fees at all.
Also, I am not sure if TS is including exchange data fees as part of
that figure. I think it's close to impossible to draw any meaningful
conclusion from that subscription figures.
May be post a poll in elitetrader.com :)
- Abhijit
On 2/28/2010 11:56 PM, alex@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:
I'm looking for suggestions on how to determine the number of people
who use platforms such like TradeStation for their trading. How would
I determine what platforms have the biggest market share, and what is
the size of the userbase for each platform?
I'm trying to develop a business plan for a start-up I'm working on.
The plan must contain a market analysis; that is (from large to small):
1. How large is the SERVICEABLE market? (Say, speculators and possibly
hedgers, but not fundamentals traders or passive investors who let an
account manager do their trading)
2. How large is the ADDRESSIBLE market? (e.g. technical traders)
3. How large is the PENETRABLE market? (This is the most important
question - this market would be, I think, the user base of traders who
use platforms that we can support, such as TradeStation, NinjaTrader,
eSignal, etc.)
I thought I could find out the TradeStation user base from their
annual report, but I couldn't. They report $7.75 million in
subscription fees in 2008, which would imply anywhere from 25,800 to
77,500 customers depending on the mix of brokerage ($100/month) vs
subscription ($250-$300/month).
Even so, the high end of that range doesn't seem big to me - if we
gain 0.1% of those customers to subscribe to our services, that's only
25 to 77 people. Maybe triple that for supporting other platforms like
eSignal and NinjaTrader. It's tough to run a business that earns a
living with so few customers.
Suggestions? Market analysis is always the most difficult part of any
business plan. And not doing it is one reason why many new business
fail or never get off the ground.
-Alex
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