Tradestation2000i V The others

[The Gorilla]

I'm looking at purchasing a good trading system for intra day (80%) and some eod (20%) trading. My mind is currently filled with lots of bits of info as to which trading system and which feeds are good.

My trading is FX (70%), UK securities (15%) and US Options (15%).

I have come across OmniTrader, Metastock and Sharescope as well as TS. I have also been told the esignal feed is cr@p.

To all those folks out there that have perhaps gone thru this pain your insight, experience would be very much appreciated as to which would be the better trading system for the parameters given above.

Many Thanks in advance

 

[iq200]

Gorilla, I have heard Omnitrader is good. Tradestation however beats everything for flexibility and extensibility. The addons that you get for TS2000 are superb. For example, if you go to www.tssupport.com you can buy many data import/feed tools that allow you to connect to many different data feeds. Esignal is good for variety and is reasonable value for money and I havent had any problems with data. However I have heard of cases where the feed has gone down in the day. As I say when I was with them I didnt have any probs. If you want good value for money try www.mytrack.com.
If you want dirt cheap then try a feed from Interactive brokers. I believe you can get historical data from them too.

Regards,

Imran

 

[Bunyip]

Gorilla,

I have been using TS2000i for some time and have found it good - especially if you want to write your own signals, indicators and strategies.

I have been using eSignal as a data feed (futures only) for most of this year with no problems. Esignal have a download function to fill in data in Tradestation if you miss a period of time (up to a month for tick data), so it is possible to have a very good historical database on your local machine.

I previously used a satellite data feed with TS, but had all sorts of problems with missing data and the connection going down. Not so with eSignal.

Hope this helps.

 

[The Gorilla]

ImranQ and Bunyip, many thanks for your feedbacks. Anyone else, pls give any feedback you care as I'm looking to make a well informed decision.

ImranQ, I've heard of Interactive Brokers thru Franco @ Scalper.com. Whats your experience of the feed? Is it any good, esp forex. From what i understand, its free but the esignal is £120circa!

cheers

 

[iq200]

Gorilla,

I use Tradestation 8. I dont know that much about IB apart from what I told you. The best place to see is look on their forums. Also checkout www.elitetrader.com and use the search facility.

Regards,

Imran

 

[Trader333]

The IB feed with Tradestation is fine but there is no backfill facility so you would need to have an additional backfill feed. Also you are restricted to 40 symbols being displayed at a time and any instrument that charts volume is hopelessly wrong with IB. You also need a specialist piece of software to convert the IB feed to a format suitable for use in Tradestation such as http://www.hypertrader.it/hserver.shtml


Paul

 

[The Gorilla]

Thanks Paul and Imran.

What feed would you folks recommend esp for forex and Uk equities?

By the way, I've come across Aspen Graphics. Any opinions on this?

cheers

 

[iq200]

Gorilla,
If you want an open data feed for UK stocks then the only ones I know of are Tenfore and Esignal. Tenfore is very reliable and fast I have heard but way too expensive. So IMO if I was in your shoes I would choose Esignal. However maybe someone else has a better alternative.

Regards,

Imran

 

[JTrader]

A problem with the Tenfore datafeed is that you also need a satellite dish to receive it

jtrader.

 

[trendie]

This is an absolute basic question about Tradestation, please indulge me !

I have visited their website - its all american. is there a UK office ?
( the "call-a-rep" only allows US or Canada as country options )

Also, it doesnt appear to show prices. or which data feeds they use.

Am I not clicking on the right page or something ?

I am interested in the EasyLanguage aspect, and the fact that I can back-test strategies.
( I am currently having to do this manually, ( I use Updata ), and would like to automate back-tests )

appreciate any replies - thanks

 

[Bunyip]

Trendie,

It depends on which version of Tradestation you want to use.

TS 2000i is standalone and you need a datafeed. The data is stored on your machine. This is not available in the US. A UK dealer is http://www.tradersworlduk.net/ where you can purchase the software.

The US site relates to TS 8 which has an integrated datafeed, backtesting, trading software. You pay a monthly fee for use.

Both will allow you to write strategies and backtest ideas. TS 8 was limited in what was provided for European securities/futures/etc., although I am not sure that this still applies.

My understanding is that the Easylanguage capabilities are similar in both versions.

Hope this helps.

 

[trendie]

thanks bunyip for link and info .

 

[iq200]

TS8 is still limited in what you can view/backtest/trade. However the import/viewing/backtesting of data can be overcome using a tool called owndata from www.tssupport.com. This sits on top of Tradestation to allow you to use feeds such as Esignal

 

[MartinD]

tradestation v8 is available to european customers , but at the moment they only cater for US futures and securities data and execution. They do not provide Eurex or Liffe futures, nor any european stocks (yet) and because the platform data is integrated you cannot import external data.

I have both programs and I can definately say that v8 is vastly superior to 2000i, so it really depends on which markets you trade.

 

[The Gorilla]

Looks like this tread is gathering some steam! Its good to hear some of the feedback this thread is getting.

Anyone any opinions on Aspen Graphics. At circa £200 its a lot less than TS @ circa £1500.

Also I've heard that Meta stock has some pros over TS in that for missing data is automatically done each time you log on, where as with TS, it needs to be done manually. Any views on this?

cheers

 

[MartinD]

TS v8 automatically backfills as all data is served from TS servers on demand rather than cached in realtime on your local machine.

TS cater for forex I forgot to mention in my previous post. v8 is only available on subscription NOT purchase.