TradeStation As My Stock Broker

[flyingdutchmen 10]

hope this is in the right place here

 

i have heard some true horror-story's about tradestation

especially concerning huge slipage even on liquid emini future's

and unreliable data but i am still seriously concidering them to

auto trade stocks intraday. i am familiar with easy language as

i am using a ts-replica for a couple of years (tradesignal5) so the

step would not be to big i am not very interested in learning a new

language and i do love the software

 

i am hoping for some feedback from ts-users that are using their API

and maybe also trade stocks with them

 

my questions..

 

1. are those negative ratings i read on the web (ET) about them

also true for stocks or do they aply to future's only?

2. slippage ?

3. wide spread during normal market conditions ?

4. i have heared there is no papertrading at TS ? how do you forward

test your strategies?

 

 

could you recommend them to someone who is willing to automize

his intraday strategies on high liquid stocks?

 

 

thank you

Edited August 25, 2009 by flyingdutchmen

[thrunner 10]

1-3 search this forum for more user experiences, each trader is different.

4. TS has a simulator that will work with strategy testing.

Edited August 25, 2009 by Soultrader
link reporeted as redirect.

[flyingdutchmen 10]

1-3 search this forum for more user experiences, each trader is different.

4. TS has a simulator that will work with strategy testing.

 

 

well yes each trader is different buy tradestation is tradestation.

that is why i am trying to gather more information about tradestation

as a stock broker.i have done my searches, most of them where based

upon futures trading rarely i find a post about trading stocks automaticly.

 

what exactly is it this simulator can do ? i have read that limit fills

with the simulator are far from realistic, it was an old post though

 

any changes maybe?

 

still hoping for some reactions from a tradestation user

with experience in connection the platform to account

 

how good / bad is it

[flyingdutchmen 10]

nobody?

 

i find it hard to believe that nobody is using tradestation to

trade stocks and is able to tell me something about slippage/spread

with them

[bakrob99 11]

nobody?

 

i find it hard to believe that nobody is using tradestation to

trade stocks and is able to tell me something about slippage/spread

with them

 

I am left wondering why you don't go to the TradeStation Users Forum where you will find many people trading stocks who can offer the best advice available. It is and should be your #1 resource for these type of questions/answers.

[flyingdutchmen 10]

I am left wondering why you don't go to the TradeStation Users Forum where you will find many people trading stocks who can offer the best advice available. It is and should be your #1 resource for these type of questions/answers.

 

well and how would one do that as they are only available to

tradestation members?

 

as far as i am informed this should be a trading forum.

i am seeking for UNbiased oppinions from people who use or have used ts

to trade stocks

[bakrob99 11]

well and how would one do that as they are only available to

tradestation members?

 

as far as i am informed this should be a trading forum.

i am seeking for UNbiased oppinions from people who use or have used ts

to trade stocks

 

I am sorry. I thought you already had TS and were soliciting opinions. My mistake.

 

I think you will find that many TS users trade stock quite successfully using TS. I personally trade the ES everyday and I have no problem with data or slippage. I do not trade stocks but in my attendance at the TS forum leads me to believe that many traders do trade stocks and ETF's, some fully automated and some on a semi or discretionary basis.

 

The TS forum is huge by the way and completely available for the past many years for searches etc. It contains many links and useful strategies and assiatnce is available both from users and TS support staff.

 

I have used other platforms for trading (like Infinity AT dome) and they are all good. They might be slightly faster to execute but my strategies uses either Stop Limit or Limit orders for entries so it doesn't concern me. If I get stopped out, I rarely have slippage on TS except in very fast markets.

[Tams 20]

I am left wondering why you don't go to the TradeStation Users Forum where you will find many people trading stocks who can offer the best advice available. It is and should be your #1 resource for these type of questions/answers.

 

 

LOL... you might get edited opinion there. ;-)>

[flyingdutchmen 10]

@bakrob99

 

thank you

 

i have heared that the tradestation forum is one of the best.

 

what is holding me back is the story's about wide spread

huge slippage and bad costumer servive (if one is not a new member); but you do not share this experience, that is good.

 

how realistic is this simulator they offer and what exactly can it do?

 

i believe it is not possible to trade an IB account directly with ts software

and IB's API but one would need a third party software like ninja

[Charlton 10]

@bakrob99

 

thank you

 

i have heared that the tradestation forum is one of the best.

 

what is holding me back is the story's about wide spread

huge slippage and bad costumer servive (if one is not a new member); but you do not share this experience, that is good.

 

how realistic is this simulator they offer and what exactly can it do?

 

i believe it is not possible to trade an IB account directly with ts software

and IB's API but one would need a third party software like ninja

I have accounts with both IB and TS. I trade US stocks and have had no real issues with slippage, spread or data. Spread on US stocks is generally 0.01.

 

Sometimes there are data disconnections, but these seem to be related to how long the pc is left idle and as soon as it is no longer idle the automatic reconnection kicks in.

 

I have only used customer service once I think to ask a question, so in my experience it has never been needed.

 

The simulator runs real-time data and simulates the live account exactly, although you can adjust the account size. All of the strategies, windows setup etc are duplicated in the simulator, so I would say it is very realistic. It can be used to back-test strategies and to produce performance reports on that basis. There are certain advanced things where it acts slightly differently, where you are using advanced programming functions, but for most people it mimics the real world in all its functionality, data and the way trades would be treated.

 

You are correct that you cannot trade directly with the IB broker but through an API. In fact if you did this you would need to pay the monthly platform cost of around $90, which is only free if you do a certain number of trades via the TS broker.

 

If you wanted to stick with IB I would recommend that you look at Amibroker. This is quite a cheap one-off price of around $200 and has a fairly strong programming language similar in grammar to TS. You can download their manuals and programming guide directly from their site to see. They also have an API already set up for IB.

 

As for the TS forum it is indeed very good and there is a thriving and active user base that share code on the forum and elsewhere in other sites

 

Charlton

Edited August 26, 2009 by Charlton
Add stuff about forum

[bakrob99 11]

@bakrob99

 

 

 

how realistic is this simulator they offer and what exactly can it do?

 

i believe it is not possible to trade an IB account directly with ts software

and IB's API but one would need a third party software like ninja

 

The simulator is a real time feed which matches the market tick for tick. Fills are not intended to be "realistic" but are filled if the price is hit. It is useful for checking autotraded strategies and debugging code. You can also determine if the market traded through your price and enter.

 

One thing is: TS has an option to enter at Market if your price is hit on a limit order after xxx seconds.... so you can alwyas get filled but maybe not at your desired price. This is useful for me for EXITS but not entries.

 

Trading is tough enough without trying to make software work through API's etc... I would not go that route.

[flyingdutchmen 10]

thank you very much Charlton

this is exactly the information i am looking for

its very much apreciated

 

a .01 spread is for the high liqued stocks i guess.

sounds good.

 

i do not nesecarely want to stick with IB but from what

i have read about tradestation is that most user do the

bare minimum amount of trades enough to cover the software

fee and then switch over to IB or any other broker,

but then again those are future traders.

 

i would prefere to do all trades at tradestation, not last because

90% is automated.

 

that is what made me wundering if there would be a difference

between future's and trading stocks at tradestation.

 

the bad costumer service i was refering to where rumors from

people that had connection problems or problems with the

synchronisation between the software and their account;

they claimed TS was unreachable over phone to close the trades

 

thx again

[Charlton 10]

AAPL 10 Min 0.03

AMZN 10 Min 0.01

APOL 10 Min 0.02

BA 10 Min 0.01

BBBY 10 Min 0.01

BIG 10 Min 0.02

BBY 10 Min 0.01

BIIB 10 Min 0.01

BNI 10 Min 0.03

CAT 10 Min 0.01

CELG 10 Min 0.02

CNX 10 Min 0.02

COF 10 Min 0.01

COH 10 Min 0.01

COST 10 Min 0.01

CSCO 10 Min 0.01

DD 10 Min 0.01

EOG 10 Min 0.02

ESI 10 Min 0.04

EXM 10 Min 0.01

FDX 10 Min 0.02

GD 10 Min 0.02

GILD 10 Min 0.01

HIG 10 Min 0.01

HPQ 10 Min 0.01

IBM 10 Min 0.03

JNJ 10 Min 0.01

JOYG 10 Min 0.02

LVS 10 Min 0.01

NSC 10 Min 0.03

NYX 10 Min 0.01

RIG 10 Min 0.02

RIMM 10 Min 0.02

RRC 10 Min 0.01

TGT 10 Min 0.01

UTX 10 Min 0.01

WFR 10 Min 0.01

WHR 10 Min 0.01

WLP 10 Min 0.01

WMT 10 Min 0.01

YHOO 10 Min 0.01

RIG 10 Min 0.02

 

 

Here's a list taken straight off my screen showing the spread. If you want to know what it is for certain stocks then let me have the symbols

 

Charlton

[flyingdutchmen 10]

thank you Bakrob

 

i am aware of that "fill-at-market"option, i also have this future

in my current software

 

so the simulator seems realistic, that the fills cant be 100% identical

seems logical as there are no trades routed to any exchange.

fill-if-hit seems fair for any simulator

[flyingdutchmen 10]

thank you Charlton !

 

looks like a very fair spread to me

 

one question though.. where does the 10 minutes stand for ?

[flyingdutchmen 10]

seems that tradestation is "THE" software for the mass public/

retail trader

those spreads looks good.

[Charlton 10]

thank you Charlton !

 

looks like a very fair spread to me

 

one question though.. where does the 10 minutes stand for ?

 

 

I thought you might ask that - it is the interval that I happen to have on that radar screen at present. This can run from tick, through minutes, hours etc. It happens to be a column I have on there between the symbol and the Bid - Ask columns. You can have an columns you like on a radar screen including indicators. The radar screen is like an excel spreadsheet showing values at the current time, whereas the chart shows values over a time axis.

 

Charlton

[Charlton 10]

Since the subject of market and limit orders was mentioned in the thread, readers might like to know the options available in addition to manually entering a limit price. There are auto features as well and I have pasted the sections from the help text

 

 

The Auto Price feature allows you to quickly place a limit and/or stop order that joins, improves, splits, shaves or hits/takes the inside market without having to calculate a price. You can set the price increments that are available when you use this feature.

 

Hit/Take automatically specifies a Limit Price equal to the best Ask price for a Buy order and the best Bid price for a Sell order.

 

Hit/Take+ automatically calculates a Limit Price that is one Change Increment larger than the best Ask price for a Buy order and one Change Increment less than the best Bid price for a Sell order.

 

Improve automatically calculates a Limit Price that is one Change Increment larger than the best Bid price for a Buy order and one Change Increment less than the best Ask price for a Sell order. Also, to protect you from crossing the market, the Improve price will not be greater than the Ask price for Buy orders or less than the Bid price for Sell orders.

 

Join automatically specifies a Limit Price equal to the best Bid price for a Buy order and the best Ask price for a Sell order.

 

 

Split automatically calculates a Limit Price that is halfway between the best Bid price and the best Ask price.

 

Charlton

[trade-samarai 10]

Hi Flying Dutchman:

 

I use TS to trade stocks. If you use limit orders, you should have zero slippage. Slippage on market orders depends upon the stock. Pfizer will have a lot less slippage than Baidu (depends on the spread which varies). TS had a couple big outages during the past year, but one of those was a Nasdaq problem. There is data delay indicator that you should put on your chart. You can route your orders through different ECNs, etc.

Edited August 26, 2009 by trade-samarai

[flyingdutchmen 10]

thank you alot for the information guys