TradeStation is an excellent all-in-one charting, data provision and execution package, good value for money in my opinion for the cost of $99 per month + data fee's.
Positives - it pretty much does everything - analysis, indicators and strategies for FX, futures, options, equities. EasyLanguage is an extremely flexible tool in the right hands, and there are an enormous wealth of ready made and experimental indicators available in the TradeStation forums for free. Strategy automation allows for totally hands-free trading - I've used it myself and it works a treat. The TS forum community is also an excellent resource for users. Includes OptionStation for option analysis and strategy trading, and RadarScreen - a powerful symbol screening application. Reliable and stable, nothing really competes at this price level for these features.
Negatives - you need to have a FAST machine to run it at its best, to avoid data occasionally being slowed during calculations in fast markets. Margins are not the best by a long shot for futures. No access to Eurex/Liffe data or markets. You need 1-2GB of memory to run RadarScreen with 1000 symbols efficiently.
Summary: For the retail trader TS is probably the best featured package around. It isnt as good as TT / CQG - but then it costs 95% less.
Positives - it pretty much does everything - analysis, indicators and strategies for FX, futures, options, equities. EasyLanguage is an extremely flexible tool in the right hands, and there are an enormous wealth of ready made and experimental indicators available in the TradeStation forums for free. Strategy automation allows for totally hands-free trading - I've used it myself and it works a treat. The TS forum community is also an excellent resource for users. Includes OptionStation for option analysis and strategy trading, and RadarScreen - a powerful symbol screening application. Reliable and stable, nothing really competes at this price level for these features.
Negatives - you need to have a FAST machine to run it at its best, to avoid data occasionally being slowed during calculations in fast markets. Margins are not the best by a long shot for futures. No access to Eurex/Liffe data or markets. You need 1-2GB of memory to run RadarScreen with 1000 symbols efficiently.
Summary: For the retail trader TS is probably the best featured package around. It isnt as good as TT / CQG - but then it costs 95% less.
JO,
AFAIK, there is no option to pay for priority support. The main gripe I have with TRAD is that they are geared to cater for the US customer. Which is probably no problem for you. One more thing, while they do offer FOREX trading, I have found their support for their FOREX customers pretty darn terrible. Its like they decided to offer FOREX just as a marketing tool. FOREX is a very small part of TRADs business so I think they don't see the benefit in putting much effort there. Just my thoughts based on my experience with them as a customer for the last year.
HG
AFAIK, there is no option to pay for priority support. The main gripe I have with TRAD is that they are geared to cater for the US customer. Which is probably no problem for you. One more thing, while they do offer FOREX trading, I have found their support for their FOREX customers pretty darn terrible. Its like they decided to offer FOREX just as a marketing tool. FOREX is a very small part of TRADs business so I think they don't see the benefit in putting much effort there. Just my thoughts based on my experience with them as a customer for the last year.
HG
For all of the TS2000i users there are some options if e-signal is not acceptable as a data feed. So you would need a new interface to convert the data, and believe it or not there is actually a free version that works seamlessly. It is available at
http://www.hypertrader.it/freetool.shtml
And the option that is needed is the HyperServer Lite version and there are many options including Yahoo and IB. They also have software to allow you to get history data, etc.
As Tradestation 2000i was a paid for product, and still is everywhere else in the world except in the USA., where they are phasing out this product in favour of the newer TS8.x version.
There is a hugh community, and many indicators available, it seems pointless to upgrade to the later version of the software.
http://www.hypertrader.it/freetool.shtml
And the option that is needed is the HyperServer Lite version and there are many options including Yahoo and IB. They also have software to allow you to get history data, etc.
As Tradestation 2000i was a paid for product, and still is everywhere else in the world except in the USA., where they are phasing out this product in favour of the newer TS8.x version.
There is a hugh community, and many indicators available, it seems pointless to upgrade to the later version of the software.
