8/20/07 General Trade Log / Idea Sharing

[AbeSmith 10]

Hello. Hope you all had a good weekend. Major markets around the world are up. Good trading.

[brownsfan019 17]

Good trading Abe. I am taking a good part of this week off, but I'll try to stop in and see how things are going.

[AbeSmith 10]

Good trading Abe. I am taking a good part of this week off, but I'll try to stop in and see how things are going.

 

Have a good time Brownsfan.

[AbeSmith 10]

Trade 1: -8. Looked like a lower high after a lower low.

[Nick1984 10]

When did you actually enter into the trade if you don't mind me asking? On the candle where the arrow shows the entry it looks like the low is actually higher than the previous candle, and there was a higher high as well. The candle did finish down on the open though and in the middle of the range, just wondering what your thinking was on that one?

[AbeSmith 10]

Trade 2: -4.

[AbeSmith 10]

When did you actually enter into the trade if you don't mind me asking? On the candle where the arrow shows the entry it looks like the low is actually higher than the previous candle, and there was a higher high as well. The candle did finish down on the open though and in the middle of the range, just wondering what your thinking was on that one?

 

It was at 9:03CT. It looked good on the long term chart and 1250 VBC when I entered, but afterwards I looked at the 1 minute chart it was not very good. My thinking was: I was looking at the 1250VBC and the 5min. The market took a big dive earlier. So that was a bearish sign. So I was looking to buy after the pullback after confirmation. I received my confirmation from Sierra Chart 1250VBC which is running on my other computer. If I remember correctly there were 2 red candles so I saw that as the end of the pullback. Trying out a new platform I was not able to get a stop order in time. Then the market went up, more than I expected, and then I exited with a market order when it came closer to my entry.

[AbeSmith 10]

Trade 3: +7.

[TinGull 10]

Trade 1: +13 Trailed it pretty tight and got taken out.

 

[AbeSmith 10]

Trade 1: +13 Trailed it pretty tight and got taken out.

 

Good time to be trailing. What was your trail limit?

[TinGull 10]

I manually trail. When I get about 15 ticks in profit i move my stop to BE +1 and on days like today where it's been pretty choppy, I'll trail it close. Sometimes 7-10 ticks away from the action. On days where it's nice and trendy in either direction like it has been the past few weeks, I'll trail a little looser, 12-15 ticks away from the action.

[AbeSmith 10]

Trade 4: +15.

[AbeSmith 10]

Trade 5: +6.

[AbeSmith 10]

Trade 6: -8. 2 contracts.

[AbeSmith 10]

Trade 7: 2 contracts. Contract 1: +7. Contract 2: 0.

[AbeSmith 10]

Trade 8: Contract 1: -11. Contract 2: -11.

[AbeSmith 10]

That feature is available, it's just not as user-friendly as other DOMs like the Transact AT platform. If you have the newer version of OEC 3.1.1.x, they call it "Strategy Order".

 

 

Unfortunately, OEC likes to charge its customers for their demos - that is, if you don't want one that expires every 2 weeks. They could do a lot better by offering a free demo for each customer to use; currently it's $24.95/mo if you don't want to signup every two weeks for a new one.

 

Even if you're a real money account customer they charge $24.95 for the demo?

[AbeSmith 10]

My trading summary for today:

 

8 setups. 11 roundtrips. -15 net points. Realized paper loss of $121.86.

[brownsfan019 17]

I'm not sure if I will go with OEC for real trading. My computer locked up twice so far using their demo, and it seems they are a relatively new company with not many clients and I may want to go with a time tested company for real trading. But for paper trading it looks like a good platform if it does not lock up too much.

 

$24.95 is around what I pay for Interactive Brokers and Sierra Chart. I could cancel IB and Sierra to cover that cost. But the thing I like about IB, please correct me if I'm wrong, is that they have relatively low margin interest rate. I was not able to find another broker with such low rates for small money accounts. Although I plan to day trade, I would like to one day also do swing trading and long term trading. It seems that Interactive Brokers is a good broker for that.

 

Couple things Abe,

 

RE: OEC. What do you mean by 'relatively new company' and 'with not many clients'.

 

Here's what my due diligence on OEC has shown:

NFA BASIC details - http://www.nfa.futures.org/basicnet/Details.aspx?entityid=0326789&rn=Y

 

RESULT: VERY CLEAN SHEET. That's important to me and hard to do in the futures biz.

 

FCM Capital Data direct from the CFTC - http://www.cftc.gov/marketreports/financialdataforfcms/index.htm

 

I attached the June 2007 FCM Financial Data Report to this post.

 

As you will see, segregated customer funds totaled over $29 million as of this report. Is it the most? Nope. Are they as tiny as you may be implying here? I don't think so.

 

For me, working with OEC has been the best broker I've EVER dealt with. This includes going from Alaron, to ProActive Futures and Mirus Futures. The only one I will warn of is Alaron. I just didn't like what I saw (and paid). ProActive and Mirus are good, but as an IB, there's only so much they can do on commissions to be competitive.

 

With OEC, I feel I get a broker that is 'small enough to care, but large enough to not worry about'. I know, sounds corny. Maybe I should write a jingle for them.

FCM Data July 2007.pdf

[AbeSmith 10]

Couple things Abe,

 

RE: OEC. What do you mean by 'relatively new company' and 'with not many clients'.

 

Here's what my due diligence on OEC has shown:

NFA BASIC details - http://www.nfa.futures.org/basicnet/Details.aspx?entityid=0326789&rn=Y

 

RESULT: VERY CLEAN SHEET. That's important to me and hard to do in the futures biz.

 

FCM Capital Data direct from the CFTC - http://www.cftc.gov/marketreports/financialdataforfcms/index.htm

 

I attached the June 2007 FCM Financial Data Report to this post.

 

As you will see, segregated customer funds totaled over $29 million as of this report. Is it the most? Nope. Are they as tiny as you may be implying here? I don't think so.

 

For me, working with OEC has been the best broker I've EVER dealt with. This includes going from Alaron, to ProActive Futures and Mirus Futures. The only one I will warn of is Alaron. I just didn't like what I saw (and paid). ProActive and Mirus are good, but as an IB, there's only so much they can do on commissions to be competitive.

 

With OEC, I feel I get a broker that is 'small enough to care, but large enough to not worry about'. I know, sounds corny. Maybe I should write a jingle for them.

 

You are right. Perpahs I was not fair in my statement. To be sure I should have looked up OEC's history and financials and compared them to other brokers and calculated if they are or are not relatively new, and if they have or have not many clients. I took the easy route and protected my statement with "it seems to me..." in case some smart guy comes along and proves me wrong.

 

I'm thinking of Tradestation compared to OEC. It seems to me, relative to Tradestation, OEC is a new company with not as many clients. I find value in a company that has been around for a while and has lots of clients, experience, and resources. It seems Tradestation is one of the main active trading softwares. I see their advertisements in many trading magazines, and remember seeing their advertisements several years ago. I also see many people are using them. Soultrader, Paul, J. Carter, and Hubert.

 

Not to say that OEC does not have advantages. It seems that in some ways they are better, as you mentioned they are the best broke you ever dealt with and their smallness has some positives.

 

I am dissapointed though that Tradestation did not take their VBC flaw very seriously, and if they were rude to you I am also dissapointed. The Tradestation representative that I emailed said that on some things their software is not as good compared with others and some things they are better, and they are constantly upgrading and they take most of their upgrade recommendations from their forum. So it sounds like he agreed it was a shortcoming. But I understand that you talked to people who influence upgrades and they did not agree that this needed to be fixed. So if I'm understaind this correctly then it is clearly not a good move by Tradestation.

[brownsfan019 17]

It's pretty simple Abe - if you want to use VBC's, you simply cannot do that @ TradeStation. Their version of VBC's are not accurate in the least bit. As you've seen, trading is hard enough as it is w/o having worry if your charts are accurate or not.

 

If you decide to not use VBC's, TS is not bad at all. I've used them for charting before (not to trade thru) and their charting software is nice. If the VBC's were true, I'd probably still be using them for charting to be honest. I've read mixed reviews on their DOM software and I was not impressed the last time I looked at it.

[brownsfan019 17]

I'm thinking of Tradestation compared to OEC. It seems to me, relative to Tradestation, OEC is a new company with not as many clients. I find value in a company that has been around for a while and has lots of clients, experience, and resources. It seems Tradestation is one of the main active trading softwares. I see their advertisements in many trading magazines, and remember seeing their advertisements several years ago. I also see many people are using them. Soultrader, Paul, J. Carter, and Hubert.

 

Abe,

Take a look at TS's financial data on that report...

 

 

You know what I immediately see? A bunch of ZERO's in the customer segregated columns... You will also see that TS futures division has LESS net capital than OEC. I'd be curious to know WHY there are zero's listed on this CFTC report. In case you're not sure why this part is important, check this link out - http://www.cftc.gov/tm/tmint-14.htm

 

Now, the securities division (stocks) of TS is large - $65mill of net capital. The futures division has less than $1mill.

 

You have to remember that TS has a large STOCK business. That's their bread and butter, which is obvious on this report. You are looking at trading futures, so make sure you are comparing apples-to-apples.

[brownsfan019 17]

One last thing Abe - the reason I suggest looking at these reports is to get a feel for the broker you will be dealing with. The last thing you want is to become a part of the next Refco. Unfortunately, with as much due diligence as we are able to do, you just simply do not know who, where, and when will be the next Refco. That's why I suggest reviewing that report throughout the year. If you see customer assets dropping swiftly, that should throw up a red flag, esp in the futures biz since it's a zero sum game in the end. In other words, every day money is exchanging hands and you'd like to see the money your broker is handling getting larger over time, which means that broker is attracting serious traders.

 

What would be interesting though, is to see how deep into a broker's financials you can get... Since many are not publicly traded, a lot of that is private... It would be nice to be able to dive into the numbers even more...

[Guest cooter]

Abe,

Take a look at TS's financial data on that report...

 

 

I'm trying to verify that "Tradition Securities and Futures Inc", which you have highlighted, is a division of Tradestation Securities.

 

So far, all I've found points them to FXDD instead. Could you let us know which broker you were referring to, or whether I'm mistaken in my due diligence?

 

thxs

[TinGull 10]

Plus, Abe, people like Soultrader, John Carter and Hubert...they use TS for CHARTING not for their actual broker. For that they are using Infinity, and Introducing Broker for TransAct.