Hi Charlton.
I am planning to open a brokerage account (or two) and the two canididate ATM are IB and Tradestation. If I will go for TS it will be for their charting capabilities.
I was under the impression that TS should be the most complete and best performing charting software, but have not found many reviews so far in this forum.
Would you care to give me some info about your experience with TS both as a broker and as a Software package.
PS in your post I seem to understand that you are not very satisfied, since you are suggesting Amibroker
Hi
I will begin with the last point first - you have misinterpreted my reply.
The originator of the thread "Synonym", wanted to know if an account was needed to run TS8.3, if it was possible to run TS8.3 in standalone mode and that he did not want to buy TS200i at £1600 or Multicharts.
I was giving other cheap alternatives that provided fairly comprehensive programming capability and a reasonable (but not the best) charting facility, with ability to interface to various brokers and datafeeds.
So back to the alternatives you mention:
(a) IB - I have an IB account and the main advantage of this account is that is is a "universal" account i.e. you can use this same account (funded once) for stocks, forex, futures or whatever you wish. You can hold your funds in any base currency (which you can change whenever you wish) and trade in any other currency. You can trade many different markets e.g. UK and US.
Disadvantage - the charting is IMHO poor and there is no equivalent to TS or Amibroker of any kind of programming language for advanced strategies.
Now I must emphasise that the advantages/disadvantages of any particular platform for any individual trader depend upon their personal circumstances i.e. which instruments they want to trade, what size account, what kind of tools they use (S/R, FIBs, create own indicators etc), whether they need external feeds, whether they are scalping and need macros and short-cuts etc, so to get the kind of reviews you require you need to provide a list of your requirements for both a broker and a platform including what you trade, how frequently, style of trading etc.
In the years that I have had an account with IB I am perfectly happy with the platform and the broker for my own particular needs.
(b) Tradestation 8.4
I have both the platform and an account with them. I trade more than the minimum number of shares per month, such that I get the platform (including radar-screen) free.
The main advantage of this platform is the comprehensive programming language that enables me to automate trading (or strictly speaking will enable me as it is still work in progress). The charting facilities are pretty decent, but I only need to use a fraction of the charting functionality.
The programming language is supported by various forums where you get ideas, code and help, which is handy. Having said that I have hit issues/limitations with the language that required some creative work-arounds, but have so far not needed to code outside of the product itself.
On the brokerage side, I think the available orders are perhaps not as comprehensive as IB, so that may be one disadvantage. Others include - having to open separate accounts for forex or other instruments (with their own separate funding) and limited to US. For me I am using the account only for US equities, so that does not concern me.
I am perfectly happy with both the platform and the broker for my particular requirements.
As I said earlier, if you want a more comprehensive answer from myself or others you will need to be more specific with your wish-list
Charlton
