Tradestation Broker Question???

Base Platform Fee

Includes access to award-winning TradeStation® and OptionStation® platforms (fully-integrated), and up to 27-year intra-day historical database for exchanges you choose (if you do not subscribe to real-time service for OPRA or S&P Indices you will not receive any historical data for those markets).

Accounts having the following trading activity or more in the preceding month:

• Futures: 10 round-turn futures or futures option contracts -or-
50 round-turn single stock
• Equities: 5,000 shares
• Equity & Index Options: 50 contracts
• Forex: 10 round-turn lots or 100 round-turn mini lots
- OR -
Accounts having a balance of $1 million on the last day of the previous calendar month.


Any account not meeting the above criteria: $99.95/month

Need to log onto multiple computers at the same time?
TradeStation can be downloaded on multiple computers (i.e. home and office), but can only be logged in to one computer at a time. Clients trading with more than one platform logged in at one time (i.e. trading with a partner) can get additional linked platform fees waived by meeting multiples of the trading activity or account balance requirements listed above.


RadarScreen®Custom Real-Time Scanning

This feature is highly recommended
It turns your TradeStation Quotes window into a real-time State-Of-The-Art Scanning Tool. View Demo
Learn More

Accounts having the following trading activity or more in the preceding month:

• Futures: 10 round-turn futures or futures option contracts -or-
50 round-turn single stock
• Equities: 5,000 shares
• Equity & Index Options: 50 contracts
• Forex: 10 round-turn lots or 100 round-turn mini lots
- OR -
Accounts having a balance of $1 million on the last day of the previous calendar month.


Any account not meeting the above criteria:


Does that mean if I make 10 or more open and close transactions/month on a forex standard account, Radarscreen and base platform are free?

Yes. I use TS only for charting and research, and I trade 2500 shares a month (5000 round), just to get it free. But as a broker, I would not recommend them... too slow, too many problems with their servers when data is going faster (news), and when you can not close the position you have, (you will not be the only one) and then 1h on the phone to get it closed...
Customer support is 2/10.

Linetrol Development

I have been using TS for over a year now. So far I have had no issues and have always found the order execution upto the mark, (except once had a data feed problem, which got sorted in about 8-10mins)

Often end up scalping a few trades to meet the 10 contract requirement for trading futures. Other than that I love the order matrix & always use bracket orders, so never have worries about data/system glitches.

All in all I have been quite happy with the platform & service.

So you are pretty lucky man

OnlineTradersForum.com - View Single Post - Can someone critique Tradestation for me?

Do they have a UK office ?
Are they subject to UK financial regulations ?
Can you open an ISA account with them ?
Does anyone use them for automated trades ?

zapisy said:

So you are pretty lucky man

OnlineTradersForum.com - View Single Post - Can someone critique Tradestation for me?

Click to expand...

Zapisy

Looking at the quote on the link you provided I have made my comments in bold

pros..
one of the best platforms
low rates
among the best for building positions

cons..
indicators are limited - don't understand this point - there are many indicators included and you can use Easylanguage to create your own
must always have $2k available to perform an option trade or to keep it open
they close out option positions if you dont have at least $2k sitting in cash, even if its a covered call - I trade equities with them and there are minimum account balances, also minimum to comply with pattern day-trader US requirements, but so what.
customer service sucks Never had any problem with them
long hold times one the phone if there are issues Only had to use the phone once and never had a problem
always have bugs with platformVirtually all software has bugs. I have not had any major issues with their software and there are regular maintenance releases
kicked off platform sometimes Is that the platform or a problem with the ISP or the PC ?

So that makes at least two very lucky men

Charlton

I'm starting an acct with them, I hope I'll be a 3rd lucky one

I have been trading with them and through them for a number of years now. Are they perfect ? Nope, nobody is. I have however sent out over 500,000 emini futures contracts thus far and don't find them to be any sort of hinderance to my ultimate profitability at all.

you right here. but yes, indicators are NOT that limited.

But I use tradestation for 5 years already, and had scary moments in the past. And that is why I do not trade with them big sizes. (not only me - you can check TS Forum for that issue: customer service, server down, trying to get someone on the phone for 2h, etc.) Maybe since I moved with trading account they got better, but the server is down many times in the whole year... should not be like that....

all besides that is great, and I can not complain on position sizing, slow trading during day (not scalping), research, data available and many more. But TS is not for scalping...

You can check ninja or trading companies like Star Alliance Capital One (NY), that provide you with much bigger leverage, smaller commissions and faster execution. then you will see the difference. and especially when the market is very fast. Also, TS do not have MARKET IMBALANCE.

All best!!!

Hey, 10 round-trip means 5 intraday setups during the month?

Juanpablo said:

Hey, 10 round-trip means 5 intraday setups during the month?

Click to expand...

1 round turn means: buying 1 lot and selling 1 lot to close the position, or Selling 1 lot and buying 1 lot to cover the position, thus completing the trade. So if Tradestation ask for 10 round turns per month, you have to make 10 complete trades.

Also, I see that their Forex account has no platform fee now, can anyone confirm if a Forex account can also access historical data of futures and stocks from their historical data base?

lilant said:

1 round turn means: buying 1 lot and selling 1 lot to close the position, or Selling 1 lot and buying 1 lot to cover the position, thus completing the trade. So if Tradestation ask for 10 round turns per month, you have to make 10 complete trades.

Also, I see that their Forex account has no platform fee now, can anyone confirm if a Forex account can also access historical data of futures and stocks from their historical data base?

Click to expand...

I just opened a forex account with ts and the simulated account associated with it has all the historical data.

giaras said:

I just opened a forex account with ts and the simulated account associated with it has all the historical data.

Click to expand...

Thanks for the information, am not really into forex but would like to find a cheap way of getting into their platform to do strategy testing since they have free historical data and Easylanguage. Guess it is cheaper than to pay $99 per month by going their Futures account route.

lilant said:

Thanks for the information, am not really into forex but would like to find a cheap way of getting into their platform to do strategy testing since they have free historical data and Easylanguage. Guess it is cheaper than to pay $99 per month by going their Futures account route.

Click to expand...

You are right. If you invest 2kUSD you open a forex account completely free and have access to all data feed on you simulated account. I'm new to easy language and this is a good way to learn it. This said I have to tell that I'm not really exited by easylanguage anyway datafeed is really good.